With the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan, nearly 1.9 billion Muslims worldwide began special fasting and prayers in another annual celebration of the Holy Qur’an being revealed to our beloved and noble Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) some 1,400 years ago.
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan spoke May 11 on the Nation of Islam’s Ramadan Prayer Line (now called the Ummah Reflects podcast) before fajr prayer, or the morning prayer of Muslims. His message centered on the deeper principles behind fasting and the observance of Ramadan and the deep compassion that must be an essential part of our understanding.
He also called on the nations of Islam to unite against the slaughter of Palestinians.
“How can we enjoy the blessing of food and drink without a thought of our people around the world in war zones that cannot find anything to eat?” he asked. He cited Palestine, Haiti, Sudan, other parts of Africa, Asia and the world where people are starving, suffering and dying.
The UN is pre-positioning aid in Chad as Sudanese refugees flee their war-torn homeland. The World Food Program warned lifesaving efforts in Chad will stop because of a funding crunch “in a matter of weeks.” “Thousands of Sudan refugees continue to stream over the border into Chad to escape heavy fighting between warring generals that began last April.
Around one million people have already sought shelter. The aid they need must be delivered before seasonal rains flood roads serving camps for the displaced in the East, cutting off access,” the United Nations warned.
World Food Program country director in Chad, Pierre Honnorat, added, “We need donors to prevent the situation from becoming an all-out catastrophe.”
The UN said aid was delivered to “Haitians displaced by the latest upsurge in violence and the collapse of the government,” while continuing regular support programs around the country.
UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters in New York: “Some 5.5 million people–nearly half of the population of Haiti—need humanitarian assistance.” Appeals for help for the country “tragically” remain only 2.6 percent funded. “We have $17.7 million in the bank, and we need $674 million for this year,” the spokesperson said.
We are living in a world that spent a record-breaking $2.2 trillion on arms in 2023, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. There is enough money in the world to support relief efforts and eliminate hunger, but rulers place more value on weapons than human life. Yet they still have no real peace and security.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees March 13, said more children were killed in Gaza in recent months “than in four years of conflict worldwide.”
“ ‘This war is a war on children. It is a war on their childhood and their future,’ said UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, who described as ‘staggering’ the latest Gaza health authority data indicating that at least 12,300 youngsters have died in the enclave in the last four months, compared with 12,193 globally between 2019 and 2022,” the agency reported.
“To date, more than 31,184 Palestinians have been killed and 72,889 injured, according to the local health authorities.”
Days before Ramadan began, UN humanitarians reiterated “that a growing number of children are dying of starvation” in Gaza.
“Two million people depend on UNRWA operations for survival, as famine looms around the corner, especially in northern Gaza,” the group reported March 7.
A United Nations official noted that relief supplies entering Gaza in February fell by half compared with January despite the “enormous and growing needs for over 2.3 million people living in appalling conditions.”
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri said that nearly 75 percent of the enclave’s fishing sector had been devastated by Israeli bombardment. “Israel has mounted a starvation campaign against the Palestinian people in Gaza, and one way it is doing this is by targeting small-scale fishers,” he told the Human Rights Council.
“In fact, Israel has been strangling Gaza for 17 years through a blockade, which included denying and restricting small-scale fishers access to their territorial waters.”
As genocide and starvation stalk our Palestinian family, the Minister made another clarion call for the Muslim World to come together like a solid wall and stop it.
This is not a time to play politics and curry favor with the West and cozy up with Israel. As a Muslim ummah, we must obey Allah’s (God’s) command that we stand together like a solid wall and stand against oppression and aggression.
The security of the Muslim World does not lie in the hands of U.S. President Biden or any other so-called powerful government. It lies in the hands of Allah (God) and He alone should we fear and obey.
Muslims are praying near the rubble of homes decimated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s heartless bombing and massacre of Palestinians. They are dying of starvation and largely unable to get medical treatment as Israel has targeted and destroyed hospitals.
“I say and ask in the name of Allah, the Great Mahdi, and in the name of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, if the Muslim World, during Ramadan, focuses and stands as a united ummah and says to Israel:
‘You must stop. You will stop or Allah will stop you.’ I warn you Netanyahu, your days are limited. And Israel will not be happy with the chastisement of Allah and neither will we as Believers be upset when Allah’s chastisement reaches our doors,” Minister Farrakhan said.
He warned Mr. Netanyahu against his wicked plans to attack Rafah, in southern Gaza, and his murderous actions. “What should we do in the face of a beast in human form? How should we react?
How can the Muslim World believe that Allah is going to bless them in this Ramadan, if in this Ramadan they don’t give a thought or a prayer for our beloved Muslims in Palestine, and in the West Bank, in Gaza, in other parts of the world? Allah is plaguing the earth because he intends to set down every tyrant.
None will lead the human family with their corrupt minds and hearts, and their non-thinking for the little man, the poor man, the man that’s in the dust. … I’m not trying to make you upset, but if what is happening does not make us upset, we are very, very sick. And it soon will be at our door since we don’t feel the hurt of others and rise to do something about it.
“Then Allah will take our blessing away and famine will stretch from one end of the earth to another. War will stretch from one end of the earth to another. Bombs will fall and even nuclear weapons will be used. This is the War of Armageddon and Allah Himself is leading the war.
None shall escape what God is intending when he removes the wicked from the face of the earth and sets up a government of universal peace based on truth and justice.”
This is a prescient warning and guidance we must use not only for Ramadan but for the next year and beyond. Warning is mercy if we heed it.
