A Message From The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan Delivered by his Student National Assistant Minister Ishmael Muhammad
[Editor’s note: The following is the third excerpt from the Saviours’ Day 2025 keynote message delivered at Mosque Maryam in Chicago on Sunday, February 23. To order this message in its entirety, visit store.finalcall.com.]
We’ve heard the call of one crying in the wilderness. A messenger of God has been speaking to us; we see him, we hear him, but … we’ve been seeing and hearing him as “a lovely song,” and one who plays well on an instrument. We come out to hear him all the time, but we do not act on the word he gives. And then when he is no longer among the people, the people will say, “Indeed, he was a prophet.”
The condemnation of their lack of hearing is that they heard him, but they did nothing to obey his admonition. So, like the ship, the captain, the crew, and America, that does not want to let God’s people go—and we are not willing to leave… But death is at the door, now.
And it’s something how when you’re threatened with death and your mortality, that’s a whole other orientation of the mind. And it was the last plague that God visited upon Egypt, “death,” that forced the hand of Pharaoh, but it also forced The Children of Israel to say: “We’ll leave.”
But look at how many plagues! And the Qur’an says, “Whenever Allah sends a messenger, He seizes the people with distress and affliction …” Look at this: “… that they might humble themselves.”
“If My people, which are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sins, and” what? … “Heal the land!” This body comes from the earth: The “land” that’s got to be healed is this life; it’s my body!?
It’s not talking about the 196,940,000 square miles of our planet! We need a healing! And when this (body) is healed: Just look at the toxicity that’s in our bloodstream from eating improper food, thinking improper thoughts. All of us have become like toxic waste.
And we are becoming septic. But just as this body has become toxic, the earth is now full of poisons and toxicity. The rivers are toxic, like the blood flowing in our body, toxic. Waste dumped in the oceans, in the lakes, on the waters of our planet—and look at the waste that we dump into this vessel that is the real Temple of God.
It’s not this! It’s you! It’s me! The scriptures tell us that “Ye are the living temples …,” but who is on the throne? Because God is not dwelling in us. Satan! Satan has been operating!
And when that scripture tells us when the sons of God presented themselves before God, and Satan was also among them; and the only one that recognized that Satan was hanging out with the sons of God was God Himself!
So that means Satan had already gotten them. So, when God said, “Whence comest thou, Satan?” He didn’t hesitate; he didn’t say, “Who? Who me?” He stepped right out: …
“I’ve been going up and down, to and fro, in the earth, seeking whom I may devour.” And then God said, “Well, have you considered my servant Job?” … “But You’ve (God) got a hedge up around him. If You remove that hedge, whew, I’ll make him curse You to Your face!”
God said, “Deal. Go ahead! Just … Just don’t kill him.”
One man. One man! One man. “Why isn’t the devil settled on the best part of the Planet Earth?” See? They have been able to turn everyone; they’ve made all to bend the knee. But they have not made Farrakhan bend the knee! They can’t! They can’t… THEY CAN’T! …
“As Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.” As Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days, developing a heart for a nation, for a people, to put into that nation a new cardiovascular system.
Because the old heart has become diseased. It’s calloused. It’s become hardened. So, the scripture says God will take out a heart of stone from the flesh and give you and me a heart of flesh. … This heart, this is a vital organ. Why is there so much heart disease?
The number one disease and leading cause of death in America and around the world is heart disease. But the heart is so important because it pumps oxygen-rich blood and nutrients to the entire body. But the Son of Man is going to be in the heart of the earth …
So as the physical heart pumps life through its arteries (that’s outgoing) and veins (incoming) that keep circulation going, “America” is the heart of the earth: She pumps ideas, culture, music, movies, technology; she supplies weapons, financial aid, her dollar, and her language all over the world. And America, her veins bring in resources, labor, talent from other nations, keeping its economy and innovation alive.
So just as the heart must be strong for the physical body to survive, America’s influence, whether good or bad, affects the entire world. You want to send back the Mexicans, the Venezuelans, those coming from south of the border.
What do you think will happen to America and its economy … . Maybe they should just stop working at the meatpacking plants in Iowa, picking the oranges in Florida, picking the grapes in the Napa, Sonoma, and San Joaquin Valleys.
Maybe you should stop working on the farms in the Midwest! Maybe you should stop working in the restaurants and in the hotels, just for one day, and watch what would happen to America!
You would shut America down! That’s how much power Black people have when we’re united. As the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, our unity is more powerful than an atomic or hydrogen bomb.
So, a weak and diseased heart affects the entire body, leading to high blood pressure, blockages, and even heart failure. America has a sick heart due to greed and corruption, inequality, sexism, materialism, immorality, and injustice.
And if the heart fails to function properly, the body dies unless treatment comes. And many have warned America of her errant behavior and wicked policies, but no voice has been louder and clearer in warning America that if she does not correct her moral and spiritual course.
It will suffer Divine Judgment—No one has been more outspoken and lifted their voices more than these two men, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, as two divine warners. …
“If My people, which are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face, and turn …” Well, that’s the hardest part. Because you know, the scripture describes us as hard-hearted, stiff-necked, and rebellious. Easily led in the wrong direction, hard as heck to lead in the right direction.
Now, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, from Master Fard Muhammad, gave us a prayer that is in the Qur’an, parts of it. Listen to this prayer that every Muslim says to start their day.
The first thing we say when we are blessed to make it through the night, because during the night you don’t know if you’re alive or dead; you only know you’re alive when you open up your eyes.
Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought about the blessing of just waking up? And we don’t even give thanks to God. We just go about our day, do what we do, and we don’t—the first thing out of our lips is not even “Thank You, Lord, for blessing me to open up my eyes to see another day.”
We just take things for granted. But the words we say in the prayer: “Surely I have turned myself to Thee, O Allah, being upright …”—but the Honorable Elijah Muhammad put “striving [to be],” because we’re far from being upright; so I have to say “I am striving to be,”
But we do striving now—“…to Him Who originated the heavens and the earth, and I am not of the polytheists. Surely my prayer, my sacrifice, my life, and my death are all for Allah, the Lord of the worlds. No associate has He, for this am I commanded. I am of those who submit.”
Now this is the critical part: “O Allah, Thou art The King. There is no God but Thee. Thou art my Lord, and I am Thy servant.” … “I have been greatly unjust to myself, and I confess my faults.”
So, when The Minister was a young Muslim in The Nation, he visited the Honorable Elijah Muhammad here in Chicago. And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad invited the Minister to accompany him to run some errands.
And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was talking to him about one of his ministers who abandoned the flock, and he said he would never restore a minister who abandons the flock. But in that conversation, he broke from that and said to The Minister these words, quote, “Sometimes you don’t know your faults. You know you have them, but you don’t know your faults.”
“Some of them you know,” and he’s talking to the Minister about the faults that he knows of himself. “But this prayer,” the Minister said, “covers all faults. Those that you know, those that you don’t know, those that you will run into in your journey in life, your journey to God, and your journey in faith.”
“I have been greatly unjust to myself …” When you think about your and my sins, when you think of what you do that is wrong, you don’t see it as an injustice to yourself; you are not conscious of being unjust to yourself, so He calls you back, now, to remembrance—God.
“I have been greatly unjust to myself”: So you’ve got to think about yourself! “I have been.” Now the “I” comes up because you’re not talking about anybody being unjust to you, you’re talking about “me being unjust to myself.
But we never take it further. We never say,” The Minister said, “‘How have I been unjust to myself? Because the next part of that prayer has a command: ‘And I confess my faults.’”
The Qur’an says, “And We have made every human being’s actions to cling to his neck, and We shall bring forth to him on the day of resurrection a book which he will find wide open. Read your book; your own soul is sufficient as a reckoner against you.”
Oh, that’s deep! “O, My servants, who have transgressed against themselves.” So, in order to rectify the imbalance caused by sins, harm may affect a person as a consequence. And this is alluded in the Qur’an several times. “And whatever strikes you of disaster, it is for what your hands have earned.
“But He, Allah, pardons much.” And look at what the Qur’an says, “But what comes to you of evil, O man, is from yourself.”
How many of you are familiar with the law of causality? You’ve heard of that? “Causality.” It’s the simple law; some call it “karma.” Now you know what I’m talking about, huh? Expressed in the more common form, it’s the principle of law that “every cause”—“every effect,” pardon me, “has a” what? “Cause.”
“There is no beginning or change of existence without a cause. Causality is an influence by which one event, process, state, or object contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object where the cause is at least partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is at least partly dependent on the cause. The cause of something may also be described as the reason for the event or process.”
This law is also found in the Bible: “You reap what you sow.” None of us are conscious that what we send forth: At some point in the journey of life, if you don’t rectify it, it’s coming back. We used to say it back in the day, … “What comes around, goes around.”
It’s a law. And then the Bible says, “As thou hast done, so shall it be done unto you.” This is where the world is right now! None of us can hide from God. He says in The Qur’an, every deed, He will bring it forth. And even if it is as small as an atom buried in a rock in the earth, yet God will manifest it. So, none of us can hide from God!
To be continued.
