[Editor’s Note: This article is reprinted from Volume 23, No. 3 and The Final Call is pleased to announce that we will continue to reprint articles written by our late and dear Mother Tynnetta Muhammad.]
“Surely I put my trust in Allah, my Lord and your Lord. There is no living creature but He grasps it by its forelock. Surely my Lord is on the right path.”
—Holy Qur’an, Surah 11, verse 56
After nearly 74 years since the establishment of the Nation of Islam in America by Master W. Fard Muhammad, the Great Mahdi, in the early 1930s, we should be able to make an historical assessment of the progress of our Nation by studying the Divine Work of his Chosen Servant and Apostle, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
By retracing our footsteps in the light of history, we can recognize through his Spiritual leadership, the impact on the American society and people in the establishment of God’s New World Kingdom on Earth.
The appearance of Master W. Fard Muhammad and the raising of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in our midst was the first sign of the Resurrection of the dead—not of the physically dead, but of the mentally dead so-called American Negroes.
The timing of these events in the backdrop of American history is phenomenal and ended the slave and slave-master mentality that had branded the Black man in America to servile shackles of mental slavery, second-class citizens and the constant victims of the worse racial discrimination and violence that has ever been known to man and to mankind.
Through the Divine Teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, we began to be proud of being Black, and the name “negro” with all its negative connotations linked with servitude slavery under the White man, began to bring Black people, in particular, and the Whites, in general, to another level of spiritual and mental consciousness.
Gradually, the term “Black” began to take on a new reality and a dignity of its own to express a higher wisdom with universal applications and a growing sense of pride in our own worth and value as a people, coming up out of some 379 years of slavery at that time.
When Master W. Fard Muhammad appeared in 1930, using the name W. D. Fard, within three years, in 1933, he signed his name, as we recognize it today. It was in that year when he also stated that our own people were not aware of our presence in North America until his announced finding of us, which had covered some 60 to 64 years.
The American Government and some of their high officials were made aware of this significant turning point in the relationships between Black and White and pointed this out to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, when he was first arrested in Washington, D.C. in 1942, and again when he was released from jail in the Chicago Loop in 1947.
The FBI agents admitted to him that they recognized that his teaching was on time and was right for us, but they mocked the idea that he would be able to make many converts easily. They further boasted that teaching us was like putting pants on an elephant, to which the Honorable Elijah Muhammad responded that it used to be like that, but it would not be like that from now on.
Master W. Fard Muhammad communicated with both White and Black people in America during the period of his work and preparation for our delivery. He identified some three million Moslem Sons, or Masons, as being among those Whites who would come to our aid at a certain time in our history. The Divine Teachings that we are given as new converts represent the highest degrees of Knowledge, far beyond their 33 degrees of masonry, and opens the full circle of 360 degrees of the Supreme Wisdom.
The influence of the highly civilized Teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad has jumped the borders of America and is taking hold in our neighboring lands of Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean southward, and includes our neighbors to the North in Canada and Alaska, and has jumped to the far Pacific Islands into Australia and New Zealand.
There are many laws being passed in America’s Legislative branch of government that is reflecting the clean and the healthy Restrictive Laws of Islam that is helping to clean up the environment affecting both Black and White. America’s eating habits and health concerns within the medical profession is also reflecting the higher laws of a civilized people.
There are many more surprises that await America in the rise of her once captured slaves who are converting to Islam in America and abroad that will prove to be beneficial for all Americans. We hold the key and the Master Plan to America’s future survival, if she chooses the way of peace and reconciliation of differences, instead of the way of war with her military prowess on land and sea.
If America continues on this course of action, she will soon be set down and brought to shame and disgrace among the civilized nations of the world who are tired of war and have chosen to fight for peace.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad closed his articles in the Muhammad Speaks newspaper with these words: “I am the Messenger of Allah to you all!” This is as true today as it was yesterday.
As we grow in wisdom, let us unite around a common theme of action by implementing the Divine Solutions to our Problems through the example and program of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and pave a way for a future of our own on some of this good earth we can call our own!
“But if you turn away, then indeed I have delivered to you that with which I am sent to you. And my Lord will bring another people in your place, and you cannot do Him any harm. Surely my Lord is the Preserver of all things.” —Holy Qur’an, Surah 11, verse 57
