JABRIL.MUHAMMAD
“Whenever you want to do good, in this old wicked world, you are always tried to see if you really want to do it.” –The Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
The above words were spoken by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in what was then called Temple #2, Chicago, Illinois, in the spring of 1960.
I was there, with other believers and others, when he spoke the above words.
These insightful words, express a profound principle, rooted ultimately in a law of creation by Allah, which has universal application–including to this work WE–all of us are in right now.
What follows is some of the context in which the Honorable Elijah Muhammad spoke those words.
One day the Honorable Elijah Muhammad came to teach on the subject: “The Lost Sheep.” He told us not to respond by clapping and the like.
He told us of his reason that he was going to turn on his tape recorder, at a certain point, because some of it was going to be aired on radio.
He got into it. It was deep, beautiful and inspiring. At a certain moment he reached down to turn on the tape recorder.
Somehow the tape got tangled up. He looked so disgusted. Brother John Ali, the then National Secretary, came to his (our) rescue.
As he was fixing the problem, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said these words:
“Whenever you want to do good, in this old wicked world, you are always tried to see if you really want to do it.”
Now, let’s get back to Brother Rahman Muhammad’s words.
JM: When you first heard of Minister Farrakhan’s vision, back in 1985, what were among the thoughts that came into your mind?
MR: I saw the Honorable Elijah Muhammad working through Minister Farrakhan.
In other words, when he said that when he came back, he didn’t necessarily mean that he would come back as the individual, as I know–the 5’6” man, who was balding.
(I’m backing up Brother Rahman Muhammad’s words when he said he was “balding” at that time. I heard these words, with others, and then he told me privately–the Honorable Elijah Muhammad–that he would have a full head of hair.)
He didn’t necessarily have to come back and show me that finite body of his. But, I see his comeback stronger, and stronger, and stronger, and stronger, every time I hear our leader, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan speak.
I know that that’s the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in him. I know that. I’m not guessing. I just know that, because I know his voice and I know that what Minister Farrakhan was speaking from that which the Honorable Elijah Muhammad gave to him to speak.
So, in hearing all these things, I just began to rejoice, and rejoice, and rejoice, because I know what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad has taught us the truth.
He hasn’t missed not one beat. He said that God would save him and if He couldn’t save him, we didn’t have a chance.
So, I know with that, just from reading but he told me makes me to know that he’s alive.
JM: I thank you, so, so very much!
I then interviewed Minister Jamil Muhammad. That was done during the same night as the above interview with Minister Abdul Rahman, in Washington D. C. in the summer of 1994, when I was working on a book, that is now “dead.”
Jabril Muhammad (JBR): Brother Minister, I want you to please identify yourself and then tell me when did you come into the Nation of Islam?
Jamil Muhammad (JAM): I’m Brother Jamil Muhammad, from Baltimore, Maryland.
I came into the Nation of Islam as a follower of the Honorable Louis Farrakhan.
It’s hard to say what the date was because we didn’t have a processing department back then, when we were coming in the Nation in 1979.
I first saw the Minister in September, I believe it was September 27, 1978 at Cramton Auditorium at Howard University, in Washington D.C., where I was a student at that time.
I made up my mind that I would follow him. Of course, we had no structure at that time, or very little structure I should say, but I tried to append (t) myself to a study group.
So, in 1979, I began following the Minister. At Howard Theater and at various different places where he would speak on the East Coast–whenever I could get to those places from my college, I would go there and hear the Minister and tried to lend whatever support I could lend.
That’s the point at which I began to follow the Minister, from point to point, for his major lectures on the East Coast.
JBR: Up until then, or rather, before 1981 Saviours’ Day, had you heard the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan speak about the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in relation to the question of his being alive or dead?
JAM: No sir. No sir.
JBR: The subject had never come up in your hearing?
JAM: No sir, all I heard was the Minister representing the teaching and organizing us into groups.
In the study group that I was blessed, with some others to form on Howard’s campus, we got a letter from the Minister about the Be-attitudes of Jesus.
And we began using that letter to guide us into the study. Then there were some things that you, Brother Jabril, had written in Phoenix and began sending out to the various different cities where the teachings was being studied.
We did not know until a few months later about the existence of other study groups in the Washington area, most notably the one in southeast Washington that produced Brother Akil, later on, who came through that one, and Brothers who were in the Southeast, Brother Wali, the great editor of The Final Call and other Brothers and Sisters, who came from that study group .
But in our study group at Howard, myself, and Brother Marvin, and Brother Donald Muhammad, who is the contributing editor of The Final Call today, my Sister, Sister Stephanie, Sister Vanguard Captain Stephanie–all of us came through that Howard Study group.
At a later point we merged into another group.
JBR: So you had never heard him speak about that question before Saviours Day 1981?
JAM: No sir.
JBR: In any of the reading material did you see that subject come up at all? Alive vs. Dead?
I’m asking the reader to think back to the time I mentioned earlier that the 70,000 was a sign of what Minister Farrakhan would do from the power of Master Fard Muhammad and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. I made this very public in our newspaper. I know that would produce way, way over 70,000–I proved that from the words of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad–who is not dead, but very, very alive!
All the above I wrote three days ago. This is December 1, 2011. An event caused me to write this paragraph and the next one here.
Do you have the little book or booklet titled Guidance in a Time of Trouble, by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan? If you have not read it, get it NOW!
More next issue, Allah willing.
