[Editor’s note: The following message was delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan at the beginning of the Holy Month of Ramadan observance during the Ramadan Prayer Line on Sunday, April 3, 2022.]
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.
As-Salaam Alaikum
It’s wonderful to hear your strong voice this morning Bro. Akbar and to hear Bro. Abdul Muthakkir and to hear the call to prayer and know that once again by the Grace and Permission of Allah, we are together to begin the great Fast of Ramadan.
In the Holy Qur’an, in Chapter 2, verse 183, listen to the words of Allah: “O you who believe, fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you so that you may guard against evil.” In those words, Allah is giving us the purpose for fasting. He didn’t say fasting is a prescription to lose weight. He did not say that we should look at fasting as a discipline for the loss of weight, diminishing the real purpose of the fast. It is a prescription to a people who have been born in sin and shaped in iniquity to guard against evil; that is the purpose and all these other benefits come from fasting but fasting should never be seen as my way to lose weight.
There is weight that you are carrying that should be lost on the physical side but the weight that should be lost is the weight of sin that has burdened us and keeps us bound to negativity and to disease. It is sin that is the great burden of humanity today. It is our loss of closeness to Allah. So, this great opportunity to fast particularly during the Month of Ramadan is a fast to draw us closer to Allah that we may find the discipline and strength to cast off the unnecessary burden of sin.
We thank Allah for this fast. We thank Allah for the chance once again as a community to draw closer and closer to our Lord. Beloved brothers and sisters, I don’t know whether you have noticed, but since Saviours’ Day or “The Swan Song,” the natural strength of God’s Power over nature is manifesting more and more. This is such a serious time for us as Believers, but it is a serious time for every human being that walks upon the Earth that belongs to Allah. Allah is warning us and telling us that we must do that which is necessary to cast off the burden of sin.
Our iniquitous behavior all over the Earth has caused the anger of God, but also we are living in the time of the end of a world of wickedness. This is the time of the Judgment of God. This is the time that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad pointed out to us as the Days of Allah. In His day He takes over the Power of Rulership. It is not that He was asleep, but He gave evil and the god of evil which we know as Satan to have his way and have his sway for a season.
I am so happy to be able to announce that the time of Satan’s rule is up, and the God of righteousness and justice is on the scene and soon and very soon all the works of Satan will be destroyed. Every thought of him will be taken away and humanity will again be able to live in the joy of peace because righteousness and justice will be the order of the day rather than the wickedness that consumes the human family.
We thank Allah for the Fast of Ramadan, and we say to every Muslim, every human being on our planet … Ramadan Mubarak (Blessed Ramadan)! May this Ramadan be of great service to you and me to strengthen us as we go out into a world that is dying and offer to the world the way of God. We thank Allah for our teachers particularly the prophets of God and particularly the prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), and in this day and time the Honorable Elijah Muhammad for pleading with us to come out of the world of Satan, clean up our lives, accept our own and be ourselves.
So many of us want to know what is the purpose of my life? Why did God grant me this beautiful gift of life to bring me from the darkness of my mother’s womb into the light of His magnificent creation, what was the purpose of that? This is our time if we are alive. What shall we do in our time? So, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said to us in our beautiful English Lesson C-1 (Supreme Wisdom): “Are there any Muslims other than righteous?” And the answer is “I beg your pardon I have not heard of one.” That is a powerful statement! “Are there any Muslims other than righteous? I beg your pardon I never heard of one.”
Well Muslim is the nature of God and the nature in which He created the human being. So, when you say Muslim, you’re saying a righteous person. When you say Muslim, you’re saying one who is a reflection of God. When you say Muslim, you are saying a person who loves justice and is an ambassador of God to bring peace between man and man, man and woman and bring peace between man and God.
To be a Muslim is not something you learn in church or go to school for; it’s the nature. Cats don’t go to ‘meow’ school, dogs don’t go to ‘barking’ class, lions don’t go to ‘roaring’ societies, they are a society that has a natural expression of who they are. And the most hateful sound, so says Allah in the Qur’an, is the “braying of an ass.” But Allah gave the ass that sound even though He didn’t like this.
What is the natural sound of a righteous person? What do you say to let the world know you are alive, your presence in the world? Like the cat will meow, the dog will bark, the hyena will make its sound, the monkey, the ape will make its sound, the birds, the bees will make its sound. What is the natural sound of a righteous human being on the planet that was created by Allah not for the wicked but for the righteous? What is our sound?
Well, I think we can say our sound is Peace. Our sound is the Gift of God that we will give peace to all those with whom we have contact. We will never lift our hand to our brother or sister in anger. Our hand is made to build a society and a world of peace with justice as the cornerstone of that society.
Well, beloved Believers, if there are no unrighteous Muslims, why is the Muslim world in so much trouble? It is because we have become unrighteous. We have not followed the path of the prophets of God so we have been made by Satan other than ourselves. But somebody is begging our pardon. The Great Mahdi who is on the scene today is not here to condemn us for our sins. He came to save us from our sins and the sins of the enemy that we have learned to practice by being under their power and their rule.
“I beg your pardon I never heard of one.” That means that God is going to forgive all of us for all our sins if we turn from our wickedness and turn back to Him. So, He gave us a prayer. That prayer is found in many little ayats (verses) in the Qur’an, but He puts them together and gave us a prayer that says: “Surely I have turned myself to thee O Allah, striving to be upright to Him who originated the heavens and the earth and I am not of the polytheists. Surely my prayer, my sacrifice, my life and my death is all for Allah, the Lord of the worlds.” This is such a beautiful prayer that we say.
So, this morning on the first day of our Fast, I would like to read from the Chapter of Refuge, the 113 Surah or Chapter of the Holy Qur’an, it is called Al-Falaq: The Dawn. As we are going into a period of desolation and war and the spreading of death and disease, famine, and pestilence, we need to look toward the Dawn of the Day when darkness that is now overspreading will no longer be. So, it reads … “Bismillah, Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim (In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, The Merciful). Say I seek refuge in the Lord of the dawn, From the evil of that which He has created, And from the evil of the intense darkness, when it comes, And from the evil of those who cast (evil suggestions) in firm resolutions, and from the evil of the envier when he envies.”
I seek refuge. What is refuge? We seek a place where we can be safe from the hardships and the trials of wickedness. We seek a place that is free from trouble, that when we are in trouble we can cleave to that place of refuge where we—even though the world is falling down around us—we can enjoy the Peace of Allah in that place. So as a Believer we open our prayer, “Qul who-wal-la-who-aa-had; Say: He Allah is One.” He’s not three, He’s one. And, “I seek refuge in Allah against the accursed Satan.”
If we do not understand the value of our Fast is to get us closer to our place of refuge in the time of the end of the world of evil, the Qur’an (Al-Hajj, The Pilgrimage Surah 22, Verses 1-2) says: “O people, keep your duty to your Lord; surely the shock of the Hour is a grievous thing. The day you see it, every woman giving suck will forget her suckling and every pregnant one will lay down her burden, and thou wilt see men as drunken, yet they will not be drunken, but the chastisement of Allah will be severe.”
Beloved Believers, let us make this Fast a great Fast of nearness; nearness to God who gave us life and time to live it. Gave us life and the way to live it. Gave us life and the joy of peace when we try to live the life that Allah has guided us to live through the guidance of His prophets and messengers, Prophet Muhammad and through the guidance that the Mahdi has brought to us that He gave to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad for us.
Have a Blessed Ramadan. Have a peaceful Ramadan. May this Ramadan bring us closer to Allah. May this Ramadan bring us closer to each other; differences that we may have as brother and sister, as husband and wife. These differences, Allah will settle in His own good time but during this Ramadan we should strive to be emissaries of peace to one another. Make the greetings of the righteous “As-Salaam Alaikum (Peace Be Unto You)”; make it real, and offer peace to one another and try to do that which brings peace.
May Allah bless those who lead on this line to find the joy of peace and the solace and comfort of a place of refuge in Allah. I ask this for you, I ask this for your families, I ask this for our world that is in the midst of a world that is caving down and our world is feeling the effects of the fall of the world of Satan. I don’t think it’s necessary to go any further. Let’s stop there. But once again, if Allah pleases that I speak again, I want to talk about the areas of war that are soon coming and the plagues of the unrighteousness of the world and the fall of the world of unrighteousness and the evil that is spreading far and wide.
The Bible says it like this … If God did not shorten those days for His elect things no soul would be saved (Matthew 24:22). That is a terrible time that we are in right now and we thank Allah for shortening the days of such a horrible time of death and destruction and trial and trouble.
Are there any Muslims other than righteous? God has come to pardon us, and He speaks “I never heard of one.” May Allah grant all of us the best Ramadan of our practice of Islam.
Thank you for listening as I greet you in peace. As-Salaam Alaikum.
