CHICAGO—Jumu’ah (Friday congregational prayer) service at this year’s Saviours’ Day convention consisted of connecting the text of the Holy Qur’an, the Hadith or sayings of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his Sunnah (way of life) with the Coming of Allah (God) in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, and His raising up of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.”
The Khutba or sermon delivered by the Nation of Islam’s Student National Imam Sultan Muhammad linked Islam’s rich past with its North American-based present.
Add to that, explained Student Southwest Regional Minister, Dr. Abdul Haleem Muhammad, “You have following in the footsteps of Islam’s Holy Prophet, you have the reestablishing of the Nation of Islam, which began in 1977 by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.”
With the coming of the Qur’an, the Islamic scriptural text, Prophet Muhammad was able to bring about a new reality to the Arabs, explained Imam Sultan during his Jumu’ah message. “And within the next 100 years they conquered much of the known world.”
›During the first phase of the revelation, received by Prophet Muhammad while in Mecca, he cautioned the believers against retaliation against their oppressors, Imam Sultan added. The Prophet encouraged the early Muslims to migrate in 622 CE to Yathribe, which later was renamed Medina and establish a new world.
During their emigration, they were assisted by the Ansar, who had embraced Islam.
According to Imam Sultan, “It is not an accident that we find in our city (Detroit) as with the Prophet that he escaped during the cloak of night to Medina to establish a new world, which began a new calendar of the new world. This was called Hijra. He said, ‘It is the change of the world … for Allah has come Himself.” Master Fard Muhammad made Himself known in Detroit where He raised up and taught the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
Imam Sultan explained the similarities between the Hon. Elijah Muhammad and his followers migrating from Detroit to Chicago and Prophet Muhammad and his followers migrating from Mecca to Medina as being significant. To give more substance to the similarities that there is a Mecca Masonic Lodge in Detroit and a Medina Masonic Lodge in Chicago.
Imam Sultan encouraged the believers to follow the Prophet’s example. He said when Islam’s Holy Prophet was ordered, during his initial revelation, to read, on three different occasions, “This is the moment in time that we brothers and sisters take what we have been given and read and become inspired by what we read and develop ourselves.”
He put special emphasis on reading the Qur’an and reading the life and history of Master Fard Muhammad, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and to put them all into perspective.
“Min. Farrakhan said you can’t see the Honorable Elijah Muhammad properly without knowledge of the history of Prophet Muhammad,” said Imam Sultan.
Imam Sultan gave special honor and showed admiration and respect to Islam’s first martyr, a Black African woman named Sumayya bint Khayyat. He also mentioned the Ethiopian Bilal, who as an enslaved African, and later tortured by the Quraysh for his unwillingness to denounce his faith in Islam. He later became Prophet Muhammad’s only treasurer during his lifetime and the first to call the Adhan or call to prayer.
Bilal and others of Black African descents unshakable faith said so much about their character and commitment that the second caliph of Islam, Umar bin al-Khattab, told a delegation of Arabs, who wondered why a delegation of Black Muslims received an audience before them,
“By Allah, the virtue and excellence they have attained through the sacrifices they made in the way of Islam before you far outweighs the honor and virtue you now speak of. They surpass you in virtue and theirs is a degree you can never attain. Better to accept it.”
