What is the meaning of friendship?

[Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint that was published online on July 31, 2009; and The Final Call will continue to publish articles by our brother and friend Minister Jabril Muhammad.]

I’ve been blessed to be a follower of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, in the Nation of Islam, and then continue under the leadership of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. That involves my effort to help others to follow them respectively. This goes back to the mid-fifties.

I’ve received many blessings ever since I entered the Nation of Islam. I’ve also been a victim of slander. Being slandered is part of the trials Muslims go through in this world. Both are still happening in my life.

Being slandered has intensified and it has occurred in relation to my health problems that started some years ago. That has intensified two and a half years ago. One of my health problems is “Aphasia.” Now, I’m getting out of “Aphasia,” by the help of Allah.

I’ve thought on how this reflects on my witness of Minister Farrakhan and why. What is “Aphasia?” Are there other aspects of this problem? Real Muslims seek and accept truth and “more.” How does this problem relate to any aspect of insanity?

Please read my explanation at www.cuttingedgeknowledge.org.

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In Closing The Gap Minister Farrakhan said in answer to this question:

Brother Jabril: Brother Minister, in the light of your knowledge of the word of God, through our father, and the scriptures, what is friendship?

Minister Farrakhan: The Christians have a song that they sing titled, “What a friend we have in Jesus.” So to understand friendship, one must understand how Jesus lays down the true meaning of friendship in the words that he taught; in the life that he lived and the things that he did that proved that he, as the representative of God, was and is a true friend and represents the true friendship of Allah (God). So Jesus, in this way sets the standard by which we measure friendship.

Many of us are associates. Many of us have some degree of camaraderie. But a friend is far different. To study the life of the man in The New Testament that is called Jesus the Christ, we learned that friendships start with the willingness to sacrifice yourself to do something of value for someone whom you love. To study to prepare oneself to deliver another is a supreme act of sacrifice and friendship.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us that Master Fard Muhammad studied forty-two years of His life to prepare Himself to come to deliver a people that didn’t know Him; didn’t want to know Him; didn’t really care. But because He knew, He cared enough to sacrifice His life to create a bond of friendship with a people who were friendless. He came to North America by Himself. That’s to tell us that a true friend is not looking necessarily for company to do something good for someone that He loves.

He says in Isaiah, “There was none to uphold Him. So His own right arm, it upheld him.” So within Himself, He summoned the strength and the power necessary to show His friendship by delivering a people who needed to be delivered. That’s the Qur’an when it speaks of Him, it usually uses these attributes: “Surely Allah is the Mighty, the Wise.”

He comes by Himself and is not concerned about the environment that His friend or His people are in. He settles Himself in that same environment and begins the arduous task of teaching and preparing one and making an example of friendship for that one that He might make an example of friendship for us all. So He teaches. He’s willing to go to prison. When He goes to prison He sends for His Servant, Elijah Karriem at the time, to show him the price that he would have to pay to help in the deliverance of his people.

He suffered persecution. All of this, He did to show what a real friend is. And then after He prepares one to represent His friendship, wherever he is, He guides; He protects that one who represents His awesome act of friendship.

The Qur’an speaks truthfully, “Only Allah and His Messenger are your friend and the true believers.” Because, if we believe in Allah and His Messenger and follow that noble example, then we become friends of the Messenger and friends of each other.

Now some of us think that there is friendship when somebody does a kind act toward us. It could be. But that would depend on the motivation. In the Qur’an it says, “Take not Jews and Christians for friends for they are friends of each other.”

Naturally when you talk to a Christian and you read something like that, they’re very upset. Well, how come you can’t take me for a friend and you just said that a true Christian is a Muslim and a true Muslim is a Christian. If we understand that no ayat or verse of the Qur’an was revealed outside of a context, then what was the context of the revelation of that verse? And you will find that though Muhammad (PBUH) had come in an act of friendship to deliver the Arabs from the terrible state of ignorance that they were in to make them worthy of eminence and greatness, but there were certain Jews and certain Christians who acted in an alliance to stop him from being a friend to the Arab people.

In that context, the Arabs could not take Jews and Christians for friends if they were in opposition to one whom Allah had raised to do a supreme act of friendship for the Arab people and through them make them friends of humanity.

Well, here we are in 2006. After 9-11 and the media landslide of negative propaganda against Islam, there were certain Christian leaders and Jewish leaders who came together to denounce Islam and the God of Islam as Satan. How then can you and I as Muslims take such Christians and such Jews for friends, when they are denying that which befriended us. So Allah warns us in the Holy Qur’an, “Why do you offer them love when they deny that which you believe and seek to drive you out of your places because of your belief based on an act of friendship from Allah and His Messenger.”

We have to be careful today how we use such a term as “my friend.” If we identify the coming of the Mahdi as the supreme act of friendship and His raising of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and giving him the example of a friend and Elijah Muhammad sets that example for forty-four years among us, and we would do well to limit the use of such word. You can’t even say that among Muslims that we are friends, because there are too many hypocrites among the believing community. So take Allah. Allah is–only Allah and His Messenger. Well, we know those Two. They have given us a supreme act of friendship. We know the Qur’an is right. “Only Allah and His Messenger are your friends and those who believe.” But the question is who are they?

So, in such a time of trial as this is and the sorting out that is going on, soon we will be able to unite believer with believer and we would know that the believer is the friend of the believer.

More next issue, Allah willing.