Whenever we are blessed to receive a message from the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, it is an extraordinary occasion that is pregnant with meaning, guidance and commands that we ought to carry into practice.
The men’s class of the Nation of Islam was so blessed on the evening of November 17, 2025, to receive the most recent of those precious and increasingly rare divine utterances from Allah’s (God’s) anointed servant.
During Minister Farrakhan’s message to us that night, he said: “I want you to discover the God within yourself.” Those words shared by him are a divine command; and those words really frame the way forward for us as a people; a people who are tasked with surviving inside of an American society that is day by day unraveling before our eyes.
It is important to consider the words spoken by Minister Farrakhan, the contemporary leader of our people whose modern-day leadership fulfills the spirit, principles, strategies and heart of Jesus as written of in the scriptures.
Changing the Christmas celebration to meet the needs of the times
In 2025, with the prevailing issues within the Black community being as they are: economic instability; waves of youth crime and violence; political upheaval; the curtailing of government support programs ill-affecting many Black households, this Christmas ought to be celebrated in a manner that is in consideration of these prevailing conditions.
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has for years now advocated that we take a sober, thoughtful look at how we participate in the Christmas holiday season. He has called for an economic boycott of the Christmas holiday season.
The “Up with Jesus and Down with Santa” campaign should and must be continued. The economic withdrawal from the Christmas holiday spending frenzy is a weapon in our hand to “re-distribute the pain” that our community suffers from injustice and continued forms of systemic racism and oppression.
The words of Minister Farrakhan delivered to the throngs of men gathered to see him on November 17 suggest that, in addition to massive economic withdrawal, we must also engage in a nationwide end to self-hatred and the resulting internecine violence [Black on Black violence] that exists as self-hatred’s poisonous fruit.
The love of self flows from the knowledge of self
The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad has written that it is “The knowledge of self that produces the love of self.” And I can certainly bear witness to that profound fact.
Upon joining the Nation of Islam, I was given lessons that caused me to embark upon my journey of faith and devotion with a dramatically improved idea of who I am and what my/our potential for greatness is.
The inaugural lesson (The Supreme Wisdom) we are given asks the question “Who Is The Original Man?” and the answer that is given states:
“The Original Man is the Asiatic Black Man, The Maker, The Owner, The Cream of the Planet Earth, God of the Universe.”
In amplification of this profound teaching, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad would ultimately conclude that: “Every time you look into the face of a Black man, you are looking in the face of God.”
Far from being reverse racism or false notions of Black supremacy, this divinely revealed wisdom is daily being borne witness to by the discoveries in the world of science, biology, anthropology and the history of religions.
According to J.A. Rodgers’ classic work, “100 Amazing Facts About the Negro”: “Nearly ALL THE ANCIENT GODS OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLD WERE BLACK AND HAD WOOLY HAIR”
Godfrey Higgins’ massive work, “Anacalypsis: An Inquiry Into the Origins of Languages, Nations, and Religion” states: “We have found the Black complexion or something relating to it whenever we have approached the origin of nations … all the deities were Black. They remained as they were first … in very ancient times.”
In 2002, the Discovery Channel produced a documentary entitled “The Real Eve,” which used the science of mitochondrial DNA to prove that all humans on the planet share a common maternal ancient ancestor that was a Black woman from Africa.
And these are but a tiny few of the documented proofs and evidence of the divine aspect of the Knowledge of Self. My belief in it has made me to love my Black brothers and sisters as I love myself.
We were taught to hate self, now we kill self
Historians have acknowledged that December 25th is not the actual date of Jesus’ birth. And nowadays, many are aware of the fact that the Roman government, in its formation of early Christianity, formed it as a hybrid amalgam of European pagan practice and aspects of Jesus’ actual life and ministry.
Custom and tradition, however, compel many to engage in the celebration of Jesus’ birth on December 25th despite the historical inaccuracy of the occasion.
One way we can convert this pagan observance into a righteous turning point is that we seriously consider a proper representation of Jesus as our goal and objective.
Just think about how much “peace on earth and goodwill toward men” could be produced within the Black community if we practiced Jesus’ command to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan stated on March 29, 2009:
“The First Commandment reads: ‘Love God with all our heart, soul, mind [and strength].’ But the Second Commandment is like unto it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The problem is, all of our lives, we’ve been taught against loving ourselves.”
That we have been taught against loving ourselves has produced dangerous, violent outcomes. W.E.B. DuBois once wrote: “Furthermore, to prevent the slaves from cooperating to rise against their masters, they were often taught to mistreat and malign each other to keep alive a feeling of hatred.”
Famous psychologist and co-creator of the inspiring, ground-breaking series, The Cosby Show, Dr. Alvin Poussaint, has examined the science of self-hatred. He writes in his brilliant essay entitled “Black-on-Black Homicide: A Psychological-Political Perspective” the following:
“The Caucasian American socialized the Black man to internalize and believe all of the many vile things he said about him. … Our mass media disseminated these images with vigor on radio, in movies, etc., and like unrelenting electric shocks conditioned the mind of the Negro to say, ‘Yes, I am inferior.’
“Not only have Black men been taught that blackness is evil and Negroes ‘no-good,’ they have, in addition, been continually brain-washed that only ‘White is right.’… Black men were taught to despise their kinky hair, broad nose, and thick lips.
Most psychiatrists and psychologists would agree that the Negro American suffers from a marred self-image, of varying degree, which critically affects his entire psychological being.
It is also a well-documented fact that this negative self-concept leads to self-destructive attitudes and behavior that hinder the Negro’s struggle toward full equality in American life.”
The science of loving your neighbor as yourself
The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad stated in The Theology of Time Lecture series, “I just want to teach you science… .”
A fascinating area of modern scientific research centers around the hormone oxytocin, which they have dubbed “the love hormone.” This powerful hormone is present within each human being. Dr. Jade Wu writing for Psychology Today in her article “The Power of Oxytocin” states:
“Even more incredible is that oxytocin potentially not only works directly on the brain’s pain processing areas, but also indirectly decreases suffering by relieving depression and anxiety related to pain.
Since oxytocin has many different effects on the central nervous system, working through both physiological and psychological channels, it may be able to ease the vicious spiral that people fall into when their pain makes them feel hopeless and anxious, which in turn worsens the pain.”
This is fascinating research for it is suggestive that replacing Black on Black violence with Black on Black neighborly love can have therapeutic effects on our community. There is much research on the science of this so-called “love hormone” and its aiding us in making our communities safe and decent places to live.
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan put it like this on September 14, 2015:
“Don’t you realize that if we stopped killing each other, and found the way of peace among ourselves, that it would be difficult for them to come into our community and kill us—when we have stopped killing ourselves and have found The Knowledge of Self, and are in love with ourselves?
Then if you’re in love with yourself, then you’ve got to love your brother who is the same as yourself. Isn’t that what Jesus taught? … But if you don’t love yourself, you can’t love your neighbor as yourself; so we are filled with self-hatred, and that self-hatred causes us to be self-destructive.”
It’s clear to me that the best celebration of Jesus is to actually follow his commands, and to do so starting first within our own family showing love to self and kind.
Brother Demetric Muhammad is a student minister in the Nation of Islam, a member of the Nation of Islam Research Group and Memphis-based author. Follow him on X @BrotherDemetric. Read more at www.researchminister.com.