[Editor’s Note: This article was published online on Dec. 28, 2004.]
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan ended our December 4th interview, which appeared last week in this column, with: “So these great preachers, they water my spirit and my soul. If you’re humble enough and love the word of God enough, you really don’t care who speaks it. You are anxious to hear more of what you love.
“That is all part of being a good student, because no teacher can be a good teacher except he is a good student. If he has a reputation of being a good teacher, or a great teacher, he or she will lose the edge of his greatness once he or she begins to think he knows it all and stops learning his craft.”
The article ended with: “Now, can a Muslim really learn from Christian ministers—whether Black or otherwise—without becoming confused or compromising the principles of Islam? Yes. Minister Farrakhan’s answer, next issue, Allah willing.”
On December 8, Minister Farrakhan answered: “Could Prophet Muhammad listen to Jesus speak on what God revealed to him and get confused and compromise the revelation that God had given to him when truth bears witness to truth? There is a saying in the 85thPsalms that ‘Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.’ Well, truth loves more truth.
“So when a people say that they are Muslims, and they believe in the Qur’an, and the Qur’an bears witness to the scriptures revealed to the former prophets, and then you hear Believers in one of the great prophetic voices of God talking on that revelation from God, if you love God and love the word, that word—preached by somebody who’s not yet where you are—will nurture you.
“So, no. I can’t be compromised on what I know and believe, because what my Christian Brother believes bears witness to what I have been taught. So I look at the cosmopolitan nature of what was revealed to Prophet Muhammad. I look at how the Prophet understood the Torah and understood the Gospel—aspects of it—and judged people out of their own book. So if he heard a Rabbi teaching from the Torah, how would that confuse him with what God had revealed to him, that has its root in that which the Torah and the Gospel are rooted?
“No, I’m strengthened in what I’ve been taught when I hear the Gospel preached and when I hear the Torah preached or when I hear the preaching of any sage or wise man who I can recognize came from God. I am strengthened by that preacher. It’s only a fool who would close his ear to a Christian pastor or a Jewish rabbi or a Zoroastrian teacher or anyone who’s preaching truth. For Prophet Muhammad said, ‘Seek truth even if you have to go to far off China, seek it.’ The Honorable Elijah Muhammad told us, ‘To respect truth and honor truth, no matter who is speaking it.’
“So the truth of the Bible bears witness to the truth of the Qur’an. The truth of the Torah bears witness to the truth of the Gospel and the Qur’an. So when any pastor preaches the truth of the Bible, I am edified by such preaching.
“I would encourage people to stop being so narrow-minded when it comes to the word of God. This was the failing of those who received former revelations. They were so fixed on what God revealed to them that they weren’t open for a new revelation that bore witness to that which was in their very hands. They often lost what they had by rejecting that which came from God that bore witness to what they believed.
“Their own arrogance and feelings of insecurity about what was new—since they didn’t see where their honored place would be in the new—they blindly rejected the new. They then lost a grip on what they, themselves, had been given by God.
“If we accept what God brings that verifies that which is with us, we grow into a new growth. When we reject what God sends that verifies that which is with us, we can’t even hold on to that which is with us, we begin to deteriorate like a body that fails to take on new oxygen and dies.
“That’s why Prophet Muhammad said, ‘He who goes out in search of knowledge is in the path of God until he returns.’ Because if you go out in search for knowledge, you should never return, because once you say you found it, you lost it.”
Minister Farrakhan’s words remind me of the Holy Qur’an 31:27: “If all the trees in the earth were pens, and the sea with seven more seas added to it (were ink), the words of Allah would not be exhausted.”
In his Theology of Time lecture of August 6, 1972, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad stated: “Lots of us take it for granted that the Holy Qur’an is something inferior to the Bible. The only inferior part is that it came after the Bible and the Bible went before the Holy Qur’an. The Holy Qur’an is not as old as the Bible, but it verifies what is written in the Bible and the Bible verifies what is written in the Qur’an. They are not two enemy Books, they are two Books which verify each other.”
That which Master Fard Muhammad revealed to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, which Minister Farrakhan has spread throughout the earth, verifies the Bible’s truths and the Holy Qur’an. These books verify that which Master Fard Muhammad revealed.
It is sheer foolishness to reject Allah’s words.
It’s written: “it behooves not a believing man or a believing woman, when Allah and His Messenger have decided an affair, to exercise a choice in their matter. And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger, he surely strays off to manifest error.” (Holy Qur’an 33:36)
The word “behoove” is used three times in the Muhammad Ali translation of the Qur’an in very interesting ways. First, in 26:211, we read: “And the devils have not brought it. And it behooves them not, nor have they the power to do (it).”
Secondly, it’s used in Surah 33, as mentioned above, where this verse introduces a significant subject. Thirdly, it appears in verse 53, which reads, in part: “And it behooves you not to give trouble to the Messenger of Allah… .”
Note its use: “it behooves them not”; “it behooves not a” and “it behooves you not … .” [Emphasis mine]
Behooves means: “to be necessary, proper, or advantageous for; to be necessary, fit, or proper, appropriate.”
It behooves us all to study the articles written by Minister Farrakhan and Mother Tynnetta Muhammad in the last issue of The Final Call, as the seventy weeks of Daniel are all but finished to accomplish six things.
That time period was “determined concerning your people and your holy city to put an end to rebellion, to bring sin to completion, to atone for iniquity, to bring in perpetual righteousness, to seal up the prophetic vision, and to anoint a most holy place. (Daniel 9:24)
If you have time, read this verse in other translations.
More next issue, Allah willing.
