[This article is a reprint and was published online on March 13, 2007.]
This is a chapter from a book I wrote over a five-month period back in 1994. Its title then was “Where is the Honorable Elijah Muhammad?—Is he dead or alive?” In December 2001, I changed it to: “The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan Declares That The Honorable Elijah Muhammad is [this is in small type in the upper left-hand corner of the cover] alive, well and in power!”
Except for a very few points, this chapter was written in 1994.
***
“ … Peter, standing up … lifted up his voice, and said unto them … this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel … ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days,’ saith God, ‘I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions … I will pour out in those days of my Spirit. …’ “ —Acts 2:14-17
On the night of September 19, 1985 there was an earthquake near Mexico City. Minister Farrakhan was staying in a small village about 40 miles from Mexico City. The force of the quake seemed to be the factor that forced the recall of an experience—a vision—he had just two nights before.
That morning, Min. Farrakhan informed his wife, Sister Khadijah Farrakhan, and Sister Tynnetta Muhammad of the vision. He informed them that, among other things, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad spoke to him. This was the first time he had heard his teacher’s live voice in ten years and nine months—since the last time he saw him on December 1, 1974 at his teacher’s home in Chicago, Illinois.
In his vision, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad gave him instructions and made clear that he was on that huge wheel-like plane flying high in the sky. Further, Minister Farrakhan said, his teacher told him that he (Minister Farrakhan) had one more thing to do before a future face-to-face meeting between the two on the wheel.
A few days later, the Minister came to Phoenix and shared his experience with me. Not too long afterwards he told others. Eventually, he announced the contents of his vision to the government of America and to the world.
Did he really have this vision? How can we tell? What were the contents? How can we tell? Was his vision true? How can we tell? Was it more than a vision? How can we tell? What does this experience signify? How can we tell? What does it mean to you? And how can you tell?
Deeper, was what Minister Farrakhan experienced a vision, or was it something more than a vision? If it was the latter, how can his experience be best explained? At this point, I’ll call his experience a vision. Later in this chapter, I’ll offer my reasons for seeing what my Brother experienced as something which was more than a vision.
The vision of Minister Farrakhan, his announcement in relation to it to the world, and the telling answers to the questions raised in this paragraph, form the material of this chapter.
Ninety-six months after he determined that he would, by Allah’s help, lift the name and rebuild the work of his teacher, and fifty-five months after he announced that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was physically alive, Minister Farrakhan had a very unusual experience. In a little mountain village, in the country of Mexico, during the night of September 17, 1985, he had a vision. He didn’t realize that he had this experience until two days later when an earthquake took place.
Then, on the 19th he told his experience to his wife, Sister Khadijah, and to Sister Tynnetta Muhammad.
His vision 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 vision.
The next event was to take place in New York City, October 7th, 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.
Sister Tynnetta Muhammad and I were with Minister Farrakhan, on the first day of his preparation for his New York speech. This discussion took place at a lake called Lake Pleasant, in Phoenix. Then as we were gathering our books and papers to return to Scottsdale (a city adjoining Phoenix) Minster Farrakhan informed me of his vision.
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. He did not seem to realize what he was telling me.
It was a few days later, while he and I were on a jet going to New York City, that I asked him to please go over his vision 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.
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. It was evident to me that he was experiencing more fully the reality of his vision, 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 vision. When he first told me his vision, 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 Sister 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 arrived in the hotel, in New York City, we received some very fascinating information. During that same night as we were flying from Phoenix to New York City, which is a Northeast 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.
Another factor making this event so striking was that there was a heavy cloud cover over the city. Therefore, there was no way that these flying objects could be mistaken for 60 moving stars, all going in the same direction. As we all know, clouds block one’s view of the stars. A total cloud cover blocks out all of one’s ability to see stars, if you are on the ground. These were not flying objects with which the authorities could cope. These were, according to trained observers, “UFOs,” and they were obviously flying under the clouds.
These “UFOs” generated excitement. Later I learned that there were local (in Tucson) radio interviews and several news programs which were generated by this awesome event. However, it seemed that this startling display of intelligence and power was generally kept from the country as a whole.
We wondered if we were being escorted by the “baby” planes. Remember, there was a lot of evil and loud talk—especially from the Jewish community, and from the very highest government officials of the United States—about Minister Farrakhan. I took these planes to be Allah’s way of showing them that the Minister had plenty of backup.
More next issue, Allah willing.
