JABRIL.MUHAMMAD
By the time this article appears, the 40-plus city tour of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan will have been completed. Its spiritual significance is the purpose of this series of articles, of which this is the first, which is about to end.
It started in 1981.
Ultimately, the spiritual significance (in the highest sense) of any person, the events they produce, and the time in which they work, has for its source the mind and will of the Almighty God, Allah.
Let us, then, attempt to see the significance of this tour, or journey, from the perspective of God.
Where ought we to begin? Let us begin with the facts of the tour. What happened? Let us begin in a general way.
Minister Farrakhan’s national tour began, in a sense, in June of this year (1981). It ends, in a sense, in November of this same year. He will have covered well over a quarter of a million miles; most of it by air. Many thousands of Black people have and will have heard him in person.
A much greater number will have gained a better understanding of him, his message and of him whom he represents, through those who heard him these five months.
In most weeks he taught six nights (or days) per week–his talks lasting two or more hours. There was no time for him to prepare for each event in the usual way speakers prepare for audiences, especially in situations of great importance.
I was among those with him on several of these trips. His pattern was: get up early in the morning, make preparations, get to the airport, get to a city, get a few hours sleep, get up and eat dinner with others in that city, while to one degree or another enlighten them, on this, or that; teach hundreds or thousands, as the case may be; get back to his room and teach and/or consult/advise others late into the night.
Get up early the next morning and on to the next city, if he wasn’t going back to his home in Chicago, where he would work, work, work … .
There were problems of many different kinds that added needless, and at times, sorely depressing weight to his already very difficult mission. He would speak of these difficulties as that which went with the job. And yes, there was and is the ever-present threat of death.
None of us do what we do without a motive. Motive grows out of purpose and is directed or aimed at some goal. He demonstrated time and again, both in words and in deeds, that his motive was the love of Allah, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the truth from and about him (the Christ) and Black people, with an extraordinary degree of compassion for humanity at large.
There can be no sane denial that in terms of effect, his purpose, aim and goal was and is to plant deeper the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, his message and program in the minds and hearts of his hearers. The effect or results can be seen in the improved condition of those who accepted his “preaching.”
It is, in fact, the same as that of his teacher, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad who gave his work (or assignment) in 1955 when he first saw him, in person!
Minister Farrakhan gave himself no credit for these results that is ongoing. He claimed to do no more than to deliver the truth of and about the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He stated time and time again that the God of this truth backed it and that these were the underlying factors of his success.
At the core of his message was the identification of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad as the Christ, who was written about in the Old Testament and presented in the New Testament.
The prime preacher of Jesus as the Christ in the New Testament was Paul, whose conversion to Jesus was strikingly similar to that of Umar to Muhammad of Arabia 1,400 years ago, so says Mr. Michael H. Hart in his book, titled The 100 Ranking of The Most Influential Persons in History.
(That is a book I read many years ago).
The primary preacher of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad as the Christ today is Minister Farrakhan.
We are considering the work of Minister Louis Farrakhan, especially the significance of his nearly 300,000 mile, nearly 50-city tour in 1981–a most significant year.
One cannot but think of Paul’s travels in connection with the magnificent work being done by this unusual Brother, Minister Farrakhan.
Now, in order to make the major point to be made in this series, we must have some understanding of the uses of a concept called analogy. Generally speaking, an analogy involves showing the similarity in some respects between things, otherwise unlike, that partially resemble one another. More specifically (in the science of logic), it is the inference that certain admitted resemblance implies probable further similarities.
Analogies are properly used to help one see what you are trying to get them to see about someone (ones), something or some event. Up to a point, analogies may provide some evidence that may lead to proof. However, analogies by themselves do not have the power to produce proof.
No one can prove the truth of any argument or case solely through the use of analogies. Anyone who tries to do so is either lacking in understanding of the nature of analogies, evidence and proof, or is a double-minded deceiver.
Analogies are properly used, to put it very simply, to help others see what you see. Naturally, helping another see what we see does not mean that what we see is true. Nor do we prove as true (in the ultimate sense of the word) a fact to be a fact by merely stating that what we say is a fact.
Generally speaking, it takes less time to state something to be a fact than to prove that what is stated is true.
With all this understood, let us move to Jesus and Paul of the past and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and his “Paul” in the Bible, Minister Farrakhan of the present.
The following is being stated as a fact. We are in the position that the world thinks Paul, and others were in 2,000 years ago, in relation to Jesus in the overall purpose and plan of God.
As Paul was to Jesus, according to Christian theology, so is Minister Louis Farrakhan to the real Christ.
What does all of this have to do with what Minister Farrakhan is doing right now?
(Not even finished, but very interesting at this time.)
More next issue, Allah willing.
