During a period of time when many platforms are being closed to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and his representatives, it has been encouraging to notice and witness overtures of support, solidarity and appreciation emerging from the world’s most popular and significant cultural expression: Hip-Hop.
For in the aftermath of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s worldwide July 4th message, his and our enemies have become more enraged. They now callously dog the trail of Minister Farrakhan seeking to extirpate him and the Nation of Islam from all platforms, including the digital spaces and social media.
Over the past few days, the world has been taken by storm with the release of the much anticipated new music project from Hip-Hop legend, the multi-talented Busta Rhymes. Not only does this new project, “Extinction Level Event 2,” include amazing features and collaborations from noteworthy artists like Kendrick Lamar and Rakim, but the project comes with tributes to and content from Minister Farrakhan.
To add to that already impressive and courageous inclusion of Minister Farrakhan’s verbatim words is another track that is simply titled “Master Fard Muhammad.” At the time of the writing of this article, that song has over two million views on YouTube.
As a student of Minister Farrakhan, I am very appreciative of Busta Rhymes in what he has done with this new project. And I see in it a teachable moment for the Nation of Islam.
Theology 101
Master W. Fard Muhammad is—simply stated—the God of Louis Farrakhan, Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. And for His name to be on the lips and hearts and minds of millions of people throughout the world is no small achievement.
Some religious prudes might recoil at the notion of referring to Master Fard Muhammad as God. However, religious scholarship maintains that throughout the Judeo-Christian and Islamic sacred texts, over and over again Allah (God) is depicted as a man.
But don’t take my word for it. Go to Genesis 18 of the Bible and read where “3 men stood before Abraham and one of them was the Lord.” Or go to Numbers 12 to read where God told Aaron and Miriam that He speaks to Moses “face to face as a man speaks to his friend.” The New Testament continues with Jesus in John 8 telling his Jewish adversaries that 2 men are witnesses of his divine authority and one of those men was “the Lord.” Prophet Muhammad was the successor to these Prophets who preceded him. So, if the preceding Prophets’ God was a man, the God of Prophet Muhammad was also a man. And the Holy Qur’an is filled with references that outline its own “man-God” theology. For example, Surah 55:27 states in the English translation, “And there endures forever the person of thy Lord, the Lord of glory and honor.” The Arabic word that is translated as “person” is actually the word “wajhu,” which means “face.” So the God of the Holy Qur’an has a face. And ayats/verses 59:2 and 89:22 discuss the coming of Allah (God).
A review of the Bible and the Holy Qur’an powerfully demonstrates that the most important characters to be found in the sacred texts of Jews, Christians and Muslims all had encounters with the divine supreme being, Allah (God), in human form. Abraham’s God was a man; Moses’ God was a man; Jesus’ God was a man and Prophet Muhammad’s God was a man. The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, who is also in spiritual lineage of divine Messengers of Allah (God) maintained that his God was a man; Allah in the person of Master W. Fard Muhammad.
The Holman Bible Dictionary discusses the hidden history of God in human form in its entry for the word “theophany.” Consider the following extract of that Bible Dictionary entry:
“THEOPHANY—Physical appearance or personal manifestation of a god to a person. The basic postulate here is that to see God could be fatal. ‘He said, ‘You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!’ (Exodus 33:20). …Yet the record is unmistakable that people did see God, such as Moses and others at Sinai (Exodus 24:9-10); the Lord’s rebuke of Aaron and Miriam (Numbers 12:4-8); and the majestic vision to Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1, 6:5). …Without question the theophany in Exodus 24:10 involved the appearance of a human being, for the text clearly states that a pavement of sapphire appeared ‘under His feet.’ At Peniel, Jacob testified that he had seen God face-to-face (Genesis 32:30). On Mount Horeb it was the experience of Moses to speak to God ‘face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend’ (Exodus 33:11). In the same passage when Moses begged God to show him His glory (Exodus 33:18), the Lord graciously granted Moses a vision of Himself, saying, ‘I will take My hand away and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen’ (Exodus 33:23). … God in His wisdom does not restrict Himself to one method of self-revelation.”
Our Saviour
Who is Master W. Fard Muhammad? As an answer to this important question, consider a sampling of some of the profound statements made by the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad:
SEPTEMBER 22, 1956—“THE REVELATOR saw (Rev. 18:1) an angel come from Heaven (from the Holy Land) having GREAT POWER, and the earth (the so-called Negroes) was enlightened with His Glory (wisdom, knowledge of the truth). This angel can be no other than Master W. F. Muhammad (the Great Mahdi), who came from the Holy City Mecca, Arabia, in 1930. He is the most wise and powerful being on earth or ever will be (God in Person). He, who with a strong voice announced the immediate doom of America. He said that there was no punishment great enough to repay the slave masters for their evils done against the so-called Negroes of America. He also said that the country is filled with devils and every kind of evil. His voice was strong and mighty, and to everyone who believed and accepted the TRUE religion, ISLAM, he gave them a holy name of Allah’s (God). Every word that he said is true. He came for the salvation of the so-called Negroes, warning them to join on to their OWNKIND (the nation of Islam).”
JULY 20, 1957—“One of the main things that one must learn is to distinguish between the history of Jesus two thousand years ago and the prophecy of the Jesus who is expected to come at the end of the world. What we have as a history of the birth of Jesus 2,000 years ago often proves to be that of the Great Mahdi, the Restorer of the Kingdom of Peace on Earth who came to America in 1930 under the name of Mr. W.D. Fard. Later, he admitted that he was Mr. Wallace Fard Muhammad, the one whom the world had been looking for to come for the past 2,000 years. According to the Holy Qur’an chapter and verse we have under discussion, the name Messiah, the meaning fits that of the Mahdi more than any other man.
“The Mahdi is a world traveler. He told me that he had traveled the world over and that he had visited North America for 20 years before making himself known to us, his people, whom he came for. He had visited the Isles of the Pacific, Japan and China, Canada, Alaska, the North Pole, India, Pakistan, all of the Near East and Africa. He had studied the wild life in the jungles of Africa and learned the language of the birds. He could speak 16 languages and could write 10 of them. He visited every inhabited place on the earth and had pictured and extracted the language of the people on Mars and had a knowledge of all life in the universe. He could recite by heart the histories of the world as far back as 150,000 years and knew the beginning and end of all things.
“The names Christ, Jesus, Jehovah, God, Allah and many other good names, rightly are His names and He came to give divine names to the whole of the 17 million so-called Negroes, Jesus was made an example for the Jews (Holy Qur’an 43:59). Jesus and his mother were made as a sign (23:50).”
OCTOBER 5, 1957—“THE HISTORY of Jesus and His mother is a sign of the history of the so-called Negroes, who have been lost from their people for 400 years—who now are found and must be returned to their own; or else every Western (Christian) government will be brought to an aught by the Great God, Allah, under the name of Mr. W. F. Muhammad, “The Mighty Mahdi, the Son of Man,” Allah in person.”
Demetric Muhammad is a Memphis-based author and student minister in the Nation of Islam. Read more at www.researchminister.com.
