[Editor’s note: The following article contains excerpts from the repast of a one-of-a-kind Celebration of Life Tribute for The First Lady of The Nation of Islam, Mother Khadijah Farrakhan, Wife of The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, held on Friday, July 3, 2026, at The Salaam Restaurant in Chicago, Illinois. Excerpts are also included from a song sung by Sister Stephanie Mills and excerpts from a poem by Brother Harold Power to give context to the remarks by Minister Farrakhan.]
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.
[Excerpt of the closing lines from Brother Harold Power’s spoken word tribute to Mother Khadijah Farrakhan, “The Queen’s Reign” that was originally recited at her 90thbirth anniversary in November 2025.]
“We all saw The Nation dismantled and reassembled, but tell me: Who did you see sinking beneath the waves, descending into the cold crushing abyss when the depths of The Minister’s Source had him anchored a thousand leagues beneath the sea?
It was she! She broke the chains! She freed the man! She resuscitated his inspiration, and FARRAKHAN lived again! She is the quintessential manifestation that no nation can rise any higher than its woman! …
“… So no, we will not wait for the Vatican or for the popes in Rome to pontificate and debate over whether to bestow sainthood upon our Queen Mother! She has gone through more trials and tribulations and has brought forth just as many miracles as any other.
So all those who are present and in agreement, raise your hand to the sky and say ‘I,’ thus, by the power of the people, in the presence of God’s Vicegerent and the rest, in acknowledgement of all the years that you have sat perfectly upon the throne,
And for the magnificent example that you have set,’ everyone, turn and fix your gaze upon the face of the one whose grace shall never leave her. And on this, the 90th year of her birth, help me celebrate our newly enthroned Saint, Mother Khadijah.”
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan: ALLAH-U-AKBAR! ALLAH-U-AKBAR! Thank you, brother. Boy, you could not have said it better. I know those are words inspired by God and touched my heart, because I know the truth of my wife’s greatness; greater than you would hear it said. But she will rise from among the dead to be crowned before God and the world, this beautiful Ruggles Street girl!
Well, I call her “Struggles Street,” because she struggled every day to be the best that she could be. So how could I not rejoice over the beauty of your soul that captured my wife and let her life unfold? You did it, dear brother.
And I am grateful for you, because you made my day that was very sad indeed! But I know there is a great future for all of us because she paved the road before we leave. Thank you so much. …
[Opening lines from Sister Stephanie Mills’ song tribute to Mother Khadijah Farrakhan, a beautiful rendition of “The Wind Beneath My Wings”]
“It must have been cold there in your shadow, To never have sunlight on her face. She was content to let you shine—that’s Her Way. She always walked right beside.
“Pops, you were the one with all The Glory. THANK ALLAH! While she was the one with all The Strength. A beautiful face; you’ve changed her name—that’s Your Way. A beautiful smile to hide some pain.
“Did you ever know that she was Pops’ Hero? She was everything you needed her to be!
“You can fly higher than an eagle, For She was The Wind Beneath Your Wings.”
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan: Did you know that she is my hero? All the things I needed that she could be, God did it all to help me that I might be the one to resurrect a nation and then go on to a world and set people free.
Oh yeah, she is my hero alright. I mean, she really broke through. Every day on the news they were talking about her! They sent me all these words from around the world—I couldn’t even read it all; I had to stop.
She opened the door for us. She took a cover off of me! So, through her, the world will look at me a different way. But no woman could stay with a no-good man for now 73 years, and 10 years more before that! No woman got that kind of strength. But every rotten thing that the enemy would write about me hit my family, hit my friends!
It was like I had a disease; nobody wanted to be a close friend to me. Yeah … They would come behind the door and say, “Farrakhan, we love you” a lot more. But Khadijah: She never let the news confuse her as to who her man is. Never! There was not one time in 73 years that she wavered about me.
I mean, just, just think about that. You all are married, but damn! I mean … No, no, no! This is real talk! You all are married, but how long does it last? Damn, before the party is over the wedding is too! Talking about “honeymoon”?
All the honey dripped off that moon, and we as dry as the moon, (smile)— no water nowhere, no love nowhere! We’re playing games in the Name of God. … So beloved, go home and really try to make something out of your marriage by making something out of yourself.
You can’t be what you won’t live to be. So “faking”: You know, there is an old saying, “You’ve got to fake it (until/before) you make it.” And most of us are fakers.
Marriage is sacred. Living to be together and struggling with each other so that you could become one, that’s not funny, that’s not a joke. That’s the reality of life itself!
‘Khadijah still is The Wind Beneath My Wings’
If you’re afraid to be with God, you will never realize your own greatness, because when you are afraid, you can’t bring out of yourself what is buried there, hiding under fear, hiding under wanting to be loved but won’t do what will make you worthy to be loved.
This man sitting beside me, Brother Stevie Wonder: He’s like an archangel—you know I’ve got to talk about the angel! You think he can’t see? You wish you had eyes like he has! I want to say a few words about my Brother Stevie. Steve is like a conductor in the angelic choir of God.
Did you know that the Attribute of Allah, “Mercy,” “Beneficence”: He wants you to be comforted. Half of us probably in the room, forgive me if I step on your corn, but you really need to be reborn, because “faking it until you make it” is not God’s way. See, you’ve got to come out from behind the acting school of Satan, [where] Satan is the master.
And he is the one that gives you an Oscar. (“That’s my Oscar nigga.”) You didn’t hear me! Because you put on a face when you come out the door (“Who shall I be today? I’ve got to be what will make me accepted.”) If you will be yourself, you will not be “accepted,” you will be divinely protected.
So, beloved, you’ve got me fired up! And that’s because Khadijah still is the wind beneath my wings. So, when you go home and look at your wife, what do you see? No, no—no, please don’t answer! (Smile) You don’t know what you’re going to see, or you don’t know how to say what you see.
But you all have it deep within yourself: God is sitting there, waiting for you to discover Him. You running around making everybody your “hero,” but The Hero is sitting right up inside of you—or laying down next to you.
Stop faking it. Khadijah wouldn’t have been with me for 72 minutes if I was a false dude. And these are my children here, and they have grown up under me and their mother. … But they never heard me argue with their mother. They never heard me call my wife out of her name in anger.
Did you hear me?! How many of you speak evil words to your wife?I am very serious now! Brothers and sisters, we are hurting inside, all of us as Black people. In fact, all the human family is like that. So, we fight each other rather than trying to really discover what’s hiding beneath the cover, a very beautiful, righteous lover.
So, when you go home, as we celebrate Khadijah, let’s make a vow to turn over a new leaf, to be a better person. Joy has never been in sex. Righteousness is the joy of life itself, and if you are not trying to be right, you are never going to have peace or joy in your life.
[PICTURE PLACEMENT: SISTER MONICA MORGAN’S PHOTO OF MOTHER ON DISPLAY DURING REPAST]
That woman, right there, Khadijah: She lived her vow. And after 72 years, when she took her last breath, I wanted to scream out over her death. But as I was about to break down, God held me, and I could feel His arms around me; and therefore, I couldn’t break. And as Ishmael said, I cried out, “The Lord is my strength and He is my salvation. Of whom, then, shall I be afraid?”
And when you live in fear, you don’t know The Lord. When you are cowardly and won’t present yourself as God would have you to be, you are hiding the reality of the greatness of yourself. Come out of the closet.
Just don’t say that to those who are homosexual or lesbian. No, no, don’t do that. Come out from the closet of being other than yourself; and putting on a mask to hide the reality not of who you are, but of the fake that you’re trying to be today.
That wife of mine, O Allah! Look at that picture. Sister Monica Morgan, she loved that picture! And I am with her, Monica. I love that picture. And I love you for taking that picture.
So, I am going home to a lonely bed, and nobody is worthy to be in her stead. I’ll be alone until God says, “Come home.” Because she will never leave my side; she is the most beautiful kind of bride.
Dear Mother Khadijah Farrakhan, Mother of The Faithful: We’ll Be Loving You Always!!
So, I close with this point. You read about Jesus; they say Jesus was hated without a cause. People did not want to associate with Jesus when he was among us, and all the miracles that he had performed didn’t change their mind about him because they said his miracles were made by Beelzebub.
(That’s another name for the devil.) So even though he was doing things that others never could do, they refused to see who he really was. So, you could not talk about Jesus openly.
And people do not talk about me openly, honestly. You knowI’ve been a good man! Somebody on television said, “Seventy-two years and not one scandal.” It is not that me and Khadijah are perfect, no. But no scandal was behind our name.
Brothers and sisters, I will miss her, big time. And I am so grateful that all of you came to celebrate her.But underneath, you had to understand when you saw me, and the enemy writing about me day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year … What did I do?
I didn’tkillnobody! I didn’t rob nobody! Didn’t rape no woman or sleep with no man! What did I do? I told the truth and spoke the truth, and the enemy didn’t like the truth.
I’ve got to tell you about my friend Stevie! Stevie and I were in Nigeria together. … Stevie corralled me one day and said, “Farrakhan, you should leave the singing to me.” It’s the truth! And Stevie said, “Why don’t you go back and get what Elijah Muhammad was teaching you?”
He said, “Now, you can help me, because you may be able to write lyrics and stuff, but let me do the singing.” Because I was so bad at it after I had been so good at it; but I was trying to get back at it when The Nation fell, and I couldn’t find my voice; I looked everywhere. I tried to play my violin; it looked like the strings would pop. (Smile) It wasn’t for me. And Stevie put me back on the right track!
And I can tell you this: This man came from God. Nobody talks about love better than this man, because love is the key to The Life of God. And in our pain and hurt living under White supremacy, God sent people into the world to comfort us, to preach to us, to sing for us. Mahalia Jackson, “Come Sunday” written by Duke Ellington; Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit.”
And we marvel at their voices, and we love to hear our people sing. … Stevie caused us to live another day. And one day he called me on the phone and instead of saying, “Hey, Farrakhan!” he said, [singing] “I just called to say I love you!”
[Audience sings along: “I just called to say how much I care.”] Now, see? Wouldn’t you like to get a call like that from Stevie? How do you think I felt with my brother saying words like that to me?
I still got the call, Stevie. I will never throw it away, because Stevie invited me to be with him when he recorded “Songs in The Key of Life”—one of the greatest albums ever done by any musician. And I know this man will be tops in The Hereafter.
Each one of these musicians and artists are God’s gift to help us get through the horrors of living under White supremacy. And every time that Stevie sings about love, I would say “Stevie, you know, your songs and you are not for this world.” And Stevie doesn’t belong to this world. Stevie is in this world, but he is trying to get everybody in this world to be worthy of a better world.
So, “We just called to say I love you. We just called [audience joins in] to say how much we care. We just called to say I LOVE YOU, AND WE MEAN IT from the bottom of our hearts.” And so, Stevie, you can’t die.
I mean the flesh will go, but not Stevie. So, I thank God that he came. He’s a man [born also] in the month of May, on the 13th. I’m on the 11th; Mother Tynnetta is on the 10th. And here we are, together, to celebrate my beautiful wife.
So, Stevie, you’ve got the mic in your hand…
Brother Stevie Wonder [singing a rendition of “As,” from the album “Songs in The Key of Life”]: “As around the Sun, the Earth knows she is revolving, And the rosebuds know to bloom in early May. Just as hate knows love’s the cure, You can rest your mind assure, That I’ll be loving you always.”
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan: [Singing along] “That I’ll be loving you always.” Come on, Steve!
Brother Stevie Wonder: “As now can’t reveal the mystery of tomorrow. But in passing we’ll grow older every day.”
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan: Yeah!
Brother Stevie Wonder: “’Tis all is born is new, Do know what I say is true”—
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan [sings in unison]: “That I’ll be loving you always!”
Brother Stevie Wonder: “Until the rainbow burns the stars out in the sky…”
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan: Come on, Steve!
Family of Believers: “ALWAYS!”
Brother Stevie Wonder: “Until the ocean covers every mountain high …”
The Minister & Family of Believers: “ALWAYS!”
Brother Stevie Wonder: “Until the dolphin flies and parrots live at sea …”
The Minister & Family of Believers: “ALWAYS!”
Brother Stevie Wonder: “Until we dream of life, and life becomes a dream—
I’LL BE LOVING YOU, I’LL BE LO-VING YOU…
MOTHER KHADIJAH:
YOU’LL KNOW I’LL, WE WILL BE LO-VING YOU ALWAYS…
THE MINISTER WILL BE LOVING YOU ALWAYS!”
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan: THAT’S RIGHT!