[Section Editor’s Note: The following article contains an excerpt from a distillation of the hour-long message delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan as Part 30 of his 58-week Lecture Series “The Time and What Must Be Done.” To view this entire message and series visit media.noi.org.]
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad saw in Allah’s Creation of The Human Body the “perfect representation of ‘economy’”:
1) The perfect management, thrift and skill of “avoiding waste” and
2) The most efficient method for “the distribution of wealth.” We offer this image of the human form as The Greatest Example of “the distribution of wealth”: I want you to look at it. And then when you are home, if you want to check your weight (while nobody’s watching—smile),
›Take off your clothes and take a look in the mirror at your form, because this human form starts from one cell, and now there are billions of cells in this body of ours! Well, God started Creation from one man, and now there are 7 billion human beings on our planet—but why are so many people hungry? Why are so many people deprived of the essentials of life?
If this body is “a model for the distribution of wealth,” then consider this: You have food that comes in through the mouth; it goes down into one place where it is digested and oxidized, turned into a liquid, and then sent throughout the body where every organ, every cell, every muscle is fed only according to its need.
The Heart that is well-fed is not arguing with “The Liver”; and The Liver is not trying to take anything away from “The Kidney”: Everything is being fed by this System that shows us perfect “distribution of wealth.” Every “system” has its individual function, and they work together for “The Common Good of The Whole.” When The Heart is diseased, something is missing!
And if The Liver is diseased, well, what you have is a “Human Community” that is diseased; and this is why there are uprisings all over the earth, because the people are not getting what they need to survive! Why? It is due to “the system of distribution”: A “capitalist system” of distribution of wealth!
Our body is not made up of a system of “capitalism,” this is a socialist system… I am advocating that what God has set up, that makes every cell comfortable; that sets the body up that when you eat proper, think proper, and your health is well taken care of: None of your organs react because they all are being fed what they need.
Now imagine if such a System of Government existed: Who would go to bed on this Earth hungry? Who would be deprived of education? The Earth is not “ours,” the Earth is “The Lord’s and the fullness thereof,” therefore we are “stewards” of it while we are here! We know that the present “stewards” are not the ones. In fact, I point you to Jesus and his Parable of “The Wicked Husbandmen.”
The Earth was let out into the hands of some wicked husbandmen, and they weren’t bringing in the fruit thereof. So people came into The Vineyard to see whether the fruit was as it should be, and some the wicked husbandmen beat; and some the wicked husbandmen killed.
And then The Heir to The Vineyard came, and the wicked husbandmen killed him. So when Jesus asked the members of the Jewish community that he was talking to, “What will The Lord do when He comes?” they answered, saying: “He will utterly slay those wicked husbandmen.”
Now, it’s clear that their “stewardship” is what has led to the condition of the Earth today, and it demands a new steward. So the question you and I have to ask, since God Promises that He will “take The Kingdom from them, and give it to whom He pleases”—if God gives us Kingdom, and makes us “stewards” over The Creation: What kind of “stewards” are we going to be?
We are hoping that we can become better students through Economics, through Agriculture, through Animal Husbandry, through a Moral And Ethical “Re-Birth”; and that all of the associated industries and technologies that can come from the land will be shared by all those who live on the land. We must now get on with the serious business of “How To Live,” and share the value of our life with each other, and become human beings rather than “beasts” and “serpents” that are destroying human life “from the womb to the tomb.”
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