[Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint that was published online on September 28, 2017.]
One of the present realities, with which we all must deal, is the reality that even in 2017; most Black people still dislike themselves—to one degree or another. The larger picture, however, is that this self-hatred comes from the days of our physical bondage and the whole way in which White people taught, or reared, Black people. In making us to hate ourselves, and in fooling us into keeping this process up, they made us to hate our origin; ultimately God Himself.
To hate self is to hate God. True, this is changing, for the better. But this is still a fact—a crucial illness that must yet be dealt with. And many are. To hate self is to hate God. To hate God is to love the devil and evil. To love the devil involves bowing to his will, following his lead and practicing what he says we should do.
If one looks into the reality of the definition of the hatred of self, they find that self means nature. Our self is our essential nature. So to reject our original nature is to reject self as well as the origin of self—God Himself. This is an oversimplification that is nevertheless 100 percent true.
This is at the root of our disunity; the envy; the jealousy; the arrogance; the vanity; the foolish arguments we engage in 24 hours a day; our murder of each other, whether physically or through slander—which comes from the pathological hatred some unjustly have for others, and so on. Being stool pigeons for the wicked against one’s own people; drunkenness; dope addiction; wife beating and child abuse—all of this comes from self-hatred!
This is at the root of what holds us back as a people—self-hatred! Self-hatred opens us up to being further deceived by the wicked against our self-interest. This evil cuts at the root of what builds a strong Black nation, which is to love for your own Black Brother and Sister as you love yourself. But, this which is called the golden rule can’t be truly operational among us until we really understand who we are—in terms of our origin: Allah Himself!
As the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said in the Theology of Time series, “Who are you going to love after you hate yourself?” Who can we really love if we hate, or continue to hate ourselves?
Now, according to the scriptures, when God comes at the world’s end, He reveals Himself fully to one man. That man’s task is to make Him known to His people and to the world. For what? Ultimately to put those on top who were at the bottom. And He has come. He did not come to show off that He is God. He is not like that. Nor did He make His servant like that. (Nor did that servant make the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan like that.) His servant said He is already on top and He came to put us on top!
The very nature of his task has the effect of raising those who are in the worst condition to the top and at the same time it brings those who are at the top— by means of their wickedness—down, down, down. … However, they too can rise and be better if, and only if they accept the right principles.
God could not, and would not, use a proud man as the instrument, or channel, to and through whom He would reveal Himself. Among the several qualities He would require in the man He would choose to be the conduit of His Person, (wisdom, aims and purposes) humility would, of course, be prime among them. This special servant of His would possess this quality, and other qualities of the greatness of God’s nature, to a greater degree than any other human being anywhere. He would develop all of the qualities in His servant to their fullest potential. The manner or principles He used in this development is the way He raised His servant according to his nature.
This is one of the reasons God would have to personally visit and choose one from the Black men and women of America. We are the people who were put, for centuries, in the most humiliating position and condition imaginable. God would naturally have to choose one from the most crushed of all people on earth in order for Him to get that man who was potentially greater than everyone else. This man would also be the most humble of us all. From them the Christ (the Crusher of the wicked) would naturally come.
Of course, there were other factors in God’s choice of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. For example, he only had a fourth grade education. He learned just enough to be able to read and write, as he has said. This was so that this evil world cannot lay any claim in God’s preparedness of him. Thus this world cannot make any claims on God or express any rights to His kingdom. They cannot claim that they were responsible for his wisdom. Therefore, they have no claim on God’s new world.
Again, God came to a people reduced to nothing that He might do just as was written of Him; that He would bring into existence a new creation. This is that time. He is bringing in that which will be totally new through the most humiliated and humbled people who ever lived, the Black man and woman of America. We are called “no people” in the Bible.
All of the above leads to a chapter that I wrote in an unpublished book concerning the humble nature of a very powerful Blackman—the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.
This was the man of whom the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said to a few thousand Black people in Mosque Maryam that his Minister, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, was a very humble Brother. By the time he said this, 17 years had passed since the Honorable Elijah Muhammad first laid eyes on the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. By then, he knew his Minister well.
Naturally, our response to, or our attitude towards anyone, is rooted in our view of that person. If we disrespect or don’t like another, we will not regard them and what they say as we would another for whom we have greater respect. Likewise, the more we understand another, the easier it is to accept what they have to say—or, at least, it is easier to see things from their viewpoint, whether or not we agree with the contents of their view. Our self-concept may or may not interfere with a clear view of that person, their sayings and doings. It depends on how healthy our self-concept is. Humility is a quality which aids us in developing a balanced view of others. For instance, it keeps us from, or at least reduces rash assumptions about the other; their circumstances, and, in short, all those facts about others of which we really know little or nothing.
How do we see humble people? What do we feel about them? What are our definitions of this word? What comes up in our minds when we consider this term or quality? As a people we have not studied the qualities of good character, not to think of the qualities that composes the character or nature of God, which includes humility. We do not usually study the process by which good character grows. For example, just why is it that we often seem to learn better only after certain experiences—usually painful ones? What is really the root of the saying: experience is the best teacher? What is at the root of this seemingly universal factor in the growth of the human being?
More next issue, Allah Willing.
