[Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint that was published online on August 6, 2003; and The Final Call will continue to publish articles written by our beloved brother and friend, Minister Jabril Muhammad.]
It has been estimated, by some, that most people use but a very small amount of the potential of their minds. I’ve read percentages. How they arrive at those figures, and justify them, I don’t know. But the point they make is that human beings live very far within their capacity for demonstrating the qualities that make them “human.”
What does a fully developed human being look like? How different would he or she be from the vast majority of us, who are living far within our capacity for the best or full manifestation of the capabilities of a human being?
We already have countless examples, past and present, of the capacity of human beings to express the most depraved, degenerate, wicked, heinous qualities imaginable. But what of the opposite kind of human being?
There are many, the world over, who believe that there were powerful people, on this earth, who lived lives that were sublime, awe-inspiring, or even divine. Then, later or closer to our times, they point to the transcendent lives of the prophets. They also mention others, who although not on the level of the prophets, nevertheless lived magnificent and extraordinarily productive lives.
We’re taught that we ought to take example after these exceptional men and women, who led exemplary lives, even though they lived under the evil rule of Satan. Satan is the one, who according to Jews, Christians and Muslims, is the ultimate enemy of God and of humanity, and has ruled the earth for the last six thousand years, by His permission, and is the root cause of the misery of human life. How much better were humans, or could humans be, without Satan?
Most people don’t live by the principles of the lives of the prophets. And so the “religious” people teach of the Judgment Day. They state that the prophets foresaw a day when God Himself would change everything for the better–especially human life.
The Day of Judgment involves not just the doom and the destruction of this present world, or system of things, but the establishment of an infinitely superior world, in which people will live lives that express the best that is in the human being.
Now, what is that “best” that is in the human being? What kind of world will such people build, under Allah’s guidance? And, furthermore, what words would you use, now, to describe the human beings who will build, rule and live in such a world?
Here is one approach to this question. In Surah 2:285 of the Holy Qu’ran, we read: “The Messenger believes in what has been revealed to him from his Lord, and (so do) the believers. They all believe in Allah and His angels and His Books and His messengers.”
The messenger of the Qu’ran and the messengers of Allah before him, were all taught by Him. The messengers of Allah and their followers, take on “Allah’s colour, and who is better than Allah at colouring, and we are His worshippers.” (2:138)
Yusuf Ali translates this passage with these words: “(Our religion is) the Baptism of Allah: And who can baptize better than Allah? And it is He Whom we worship.”
In footnote number 137, Mr. Ali translates the Arabic word (which he transliterates “sihgat” with the English word “baptism” and states that “the root meaning implies a dye or colour” and that “apparently the Arab-Christians mixed a dye or colour in the baptismal water, signifying that the baptized person got a new colour in life.” He continued: “We do not believe that it is necessary to be baptized to be saved. Our higher baptism is the “Baptism” of God, by which we take on a colour (symbolically) of God, and absorb His goodness in us.”
It follows, then, that the more and more a person takes on the “color” of the Almighty, the more and more that person becomes like God; godly or divine.
The great majority of Muslim scholars teach that Allah possesses 99 attributes, or qualities that compose His character or nature. They teach, in effect, that living an excellent life, in essence, is living a life that expresses His attributes. If taking on the colouring of Allah means the absorption and the manifestation of the attributes or qualities of the character of Allah, then how much of our capacity for such life are we presently living? How many are expressing or manifesting what is called the 99 names of Allah?
Certainly we have the capacity to express the principles (or fundamental truths) that form the character of those who take on the color of Allah, but look at us and look at the sea of humanity throughout the earth. Most live miserably.
In his introductory letter to his study guides, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan stated that: “each study session is designed on the guidance of Allah to produce … the self-accusing spirit.”
He made clear that these study guides were intended to activate within us the divine spirit that would move us out of the lowest state, or stage of human life, in which we are really savages, who live a beast life and cause in us that movement towards our true selves or to become one with Allah–God Himself.
Since this is the time of the end of this world, the end of Satan’s rule over human life, it’s also the end of the time of human-beast-like life.
The present rulers are to be replaced by rulers who will be spiritually, mentally or intellectually and morally superior in contrast to the present wicked rulers. That’s in the workings now, in the changes now taking place.
Now, what are some of the terms you would use to describe the people of the next world, in whom envy, jealousy, murder, disputing, slander, etc. finds no place?
Can you imagine a people, so taught and trained, that they have become masters of the laws of the spiritual, mental and moral aspects of their beings, and whose physical health is constantly in a state of excellence? Can you mentally see a people who have reached the point of maturity, that they display the most fitting view of, language for, emotional reaction towards and actions respecting every situation they encounter?
Would not such a people also have reached a level of internal power that would enable them to have power over the forces, or laws, of what is called nature; that govern the whole of creation?
Could the word “gods and goddess” be terms you could justifiably use to describe a people, who have become living manifestations of God’s attributes? What of our present state of development? Does the term “the children of God” apply to us, as we are now?
If we are using Minister Farrakhan’s study guides properly, to activate the spirit of God within us, what are we now, and what are we becoming?
If you say you can’t qualify for such a process, you are “dead” wrong. But if you continue without God’s purpose for you, and if you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.
Does history, prior to this world’s existence, science and the scriptures support the above?
More next issue, Allah willing.
