“Know that this world’s life is only sport and play and gaiety and boasting among yourselves and a vying in the multiplication of wealth and children. It is as rain, whose causing the vegetation to grow pleases the husbandmen, then it withers away so that thou seest it turning yellow, then it becomes chaff. And in the Hereafter is a severe chastisement, and (also) forgiveness from Allah and (His) pleasure. And this world’s life is naught but a source of vanity.” –Holy Qur’an, Surah 57, verse 20
Very little is known about the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s mission to unite the Black, the Indian and the Latino communities of America because much of it was undercover work which only a few knew about.
I was fortunate and blessed, along with Brother Jabril Muhammad and a few others to have witnessed some of his preparations in this aspect of his Divine Work; and in my case, I was invited on the inside of this great expansive mission.
Upon one occasion while visiting Phoenix, Arizona, in the early 1960s, from the neighboring twin state of New Mexico as guests of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he invited me along with another sister to a nearby township on the outskirts of Phoenix called Guadalupe, and he began to identify the poor population as a part and members of our Nation who were in need of guidance and resurrection the same as our people.
I came to understand early on in my life as a Muslim that the two million Indians mentioned in our Student Enrollment are also original people and are a part of In Remembrance of Warrior Friend of the Nation of Islam, Freedom Fighter, Tijerina Lopez Reyes–Standard Bearer of Justice our great nation to be redeemed by Our Saviour, Allah, in this Western Hemisphere; and are to be renewed in a new dispensation and alliance of Freedom, Justice and Equality.
I was at the time of my visit to Phoenix living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, among the 19 Pueblo tribes of which the Hopi Pueblo in Arizona form a part of the population in America’s Southwest. My eldest son, Ishmael Muhammad, was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and his actual birth was aided by a woman from the Zuni Pueblo community in that state.
I had visited the various Pueblos from Santo Domingo all the way up to Santa Fe and Taos and would often bring various gifts and tokens from these Pueblos to the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad upon my visit to Phoenix. What I later came to learn is that various oracle witnesses from among several of the Indian tribes were also chosen as divine vessels of this work and were direct contacts of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
Several such persons were from among the Navajo, Hopi, Mascalero Apache, as well as others were direct contacts of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad quietly going about the work of unification. He had established what is called the Indian House for meetings with the Native population there in Phoenix as a part of his working activity.
Upon one occasion it is reported that a representative of one of the tribes asked for rain to verify the Messenger’s legitimacy and it rained, and he was verified by causing a rainstorm. One great warrior and revolutionary hero from the Hispanic or Latino community living in Texas and New Mexico engaged in the struggle for Land/Grant reform of the Latino people of that region going as far back as the Treaty of Guadalupe in 1847 with legal paper trails of ownership of the land as a testament. His name was Mr. Reies Lopez Tijerina, known by his contemporaries as “The Tiger” for his uncompromising stand for justice in the legal battle for land rights belonging to the Hispanic population of New Mexico.
He studied the Constitution and the laws of the land to know his rights to order and organize a citizen’s arrest of the leading judge in one of the local towns and successfully won the case. Even though he was later imprisoned under fraudulent charges and released, his house was firebombed causing near injuries to his wife and family.
I remembered having met Mr. Tijerina and his first family while in Chicago in the home of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad not knowing that he was being assigned to help in this area of justice for his people. He was assigned by the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad to inform the government of Mexico and its people of some of the events that would come to pass in the very near future and to guard themselves against the outcome.
The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad also spoke of various scientists who were also sent with this same assignment to the country of Mexico. Mr. Tijerina informed the governors along the border state of Mexico as well as the then- president Echeveria of some of these future events. Mr. Tijerina was a prolific writer and researcher and investigated the conspiracy behind the making of the first atomic bomb that was exploded at Los Alamos or White Sands, New Mexico in 1945.
His memoirs and handwritten testament have been collected and preserved in one of the libraries of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque today. He is truly a great warrior hero and friend of the Nation of Islam and worked with civil rights leaders, among them Martin Luther King, Jr. and knew the likes of Malcolm X Shabazz and the fiery ministers of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
I was blessed to be able to host Mr. Tijerina and his wife Esperanza in my home in Mexico and once again in Phoenix, Arizona, and Sedona, Arizona, with one of their daughters in the company of Brother Jabril Muhammad. Mr. Tijerina also met with the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan in the home residence of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the National House in Chicago, Illinois. He attended one of our last Saviours’ Day events; and he requested that his body be prepared and wrapped in linen in the Muslim manner to show his great respect for the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
Imam Sultan Rahman performed the burial preparation ceremony and Student Minister Brother Abel Muhammad attended the funeral and had words to say on behalf of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.
“Vie one with another for forgiveness from your Lord and a Garden the extensiveness of which is as the extensiveness of the heaven and the earth–it is prepared for those who believe in Allah and His messengers. That is the grace of Allah; He gives it to whom He pleases. And Allah is the Lord of mighty grace.” –Holy Qur’an, Surah 57, verse 21
