[Editor’s note: The following article was originally published in The Final Call newspaper, Vol. 10, No. 15, July 22, 1991, as the first installation of a special five-part series on health (“The War Against Obesity (Fat)”) penned by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. This is the second excerpt from part 1 of that message.]
In the Holy Qur’an, one of the characteristics of The Messiah, when He comes, is that He would teach the people what foods to eat and what foods to store in their houses. Master Fard Muhammad gave us Lessons to study. These Lessons are the embodiment of Principles of Life itself.
Lesson No. 1, Question No. 14: “What is the meaning of M.G.T. and G.C.C.? Answer: “Muslim Girls Training and General Civilization Class. This was the name given to the training of women and girls in North America, how to keep house, how to rear their children, how to take care of their husband, sew, cook, and, in general, how to act at home and abroad. …”
The first training unit in the Class is titled “How To Keep House.” How does keeping house relate to Problem No. 2 of The Problem Book, which was given by Master Fard Muhammad to us to describe our miserable and wretched condition in a Mathematical Way?
“The wife of Mr. W.D. Fard’s uncle, in the wilderness of North America weighs other than herself; therefore she has rheumatism, headaches, pains in all joints and cannot walk up to the store. She is troubled frequently with high blood pressure and registers more than thirty-two; her pulse is nearly eighty times per minute and she dies at the age of 47…”
As I look out over our Black Nation, particularly our wonderful and beautiful women, I see that obesity is killing us. As I visit our churches and mosques, and as I walk and drive and observe our people, I see that as a people, we are entirely too fat.
We are not only eating too much; we are eating the wrong foods either because we do not know what to eat or we know what to eat and are too lazy to prepare the proper and best foods.
Our women are so frustrated with living within and relating to the opposite sex, they often find themselves sitting in front of the television eating junk food, growing fatter by the minute and dying at an early age.
“Keeping house” is not just referring to the place in which reside, it beings with Self. The body is the house in which you and I live.
Jesus said that when he knocked at the door, whoever would open the door, he would come in and “sup” with them. Could Jesus have mean that he would come and have dinner with you? What would you feed him? If you offered him the junk that you feed yourself, would you not feel cheap?
Certainly, Jesus could not actually visit all who believe in him, so this verse must have a deeper meaning. The Messiah, or Mahdi, is the embodiment of Wisdom, Knowledge, Power, Guidance and Healing from Allah (God) Himself. When He knocks, it is at the door of the mind and the heart. He knocks by calling you to a Word.
This is why the Scriptures teach: “He that hat an ear, let him hear.” If you would open the door, by opening your ears and heart to the Word of Truth, He would come and sup with you, meaning, you and He would eat the same food and become part of one another.
“Let this mind be in you, the same that is in Christ Jesus.” Christ has the Mind and Spirit of Allah (God). Can Allah (God) dwell in a dirty place? The “house” He comes to and the “door” He knocks on is the Consciousness of a people. Would He enter into and stay in a filthy place? No! He is too Self-respecting.
If you are expecting God, Christ, The Messiah, The Mahdi, to visit you, the first thing you must do is clean your house. Have you noticed how reverential we act when we are in the church, mosque, synagogue or temple? Why? We are in what we believe to be a holy place. What is holy about it?
“Holy” means it is consecrated, dedicated, to the Word and Service of God. “Holy” also means “not mixed, tampered with or diluted in any form.” All who come to these dedicated, consecrated places, come to feed on His Word and become inspired to act in accord with His Dictates.
No mosque, church, synagogue, or temple on Earth is made by the Hands of God; all are fashioned by the hands of men, some with the Guidance of God. I have watched my Muslim brethren carry on with great religious fervor at the Ka’bah in Mecca;
I have seen, in Jerusalem, the Jews, tears streaming down their faces, in front of the Wailing Wall (remnant of the Temple of Solomon); I have seen Christians swoon at the magnificence of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Yet, all of this magnificent was built by the hands of men.
No mosque, church, synagogue, temple or cathedral is more magnificent than the human body made, according to the Bible, in the image and likeness of Allah (God). According to the Holy Qur’an and the Bible, Allah (God) Himself created and fashioned man out of mud, or clay, or dust.
All three of these words are used in the Scriptures. Which church or mosque is more worthy of reverence than the human body? Am I saying we should worship the body?
By no means! We should worship Allah (God) and praise Him for creating this magnificent House which is called the human body. How m any of us look at the act of pouring filth into our bodies as a sacrilegious act of disbelief? We think nothing of our own bodies.
We will not raise our voice or bring anything unclean to the church, mosque or synagogue, but we will pour filth and poison into the true House of Worship (our bodies) without the slightest thought.
In the United States, our young people are surviving on junk food. They are youthful but weak, poisoned by the intake of food prepared by merchants of death; masters of chemistry, who color food to make it look better, inject hormones into meat to make it grow bigger and faster;
use pesticides to kill the insects, poisoning the Earth; all of these actions result in a harmful effect on the human body. To be continued in an upcoming edition of The Final Call
