Adversity accompanies everything of value

On the night of February the 18th 2007, my mother, Dr. Patina Muhammad and Brother Kenny Muhammad and I were to board a train headed for Detroit, Michigan.

Instead, that night I was not on a train, but in a hospital unconscious. I suffered a stroke that morning. The main effect from the stroke was “aphasia.” What is that? As I wrote, I intend to share this elsewhere, Allah willing.

Early in that experience it provided me with an a little more insight into what I already know.

Allah blessed me to awake on the 25th. I saw my son, Elijah, Brother Cedric and Brother Charles. I smiled. My first words were, “Where am I?” They answered. Then I asked, “How many days have I been there?” They told me, “Five days.” Then I said, “Well, I guess I’m not in Detroit.” We all laughed. I then asked them, “Is there anyway I can see the Ministers’ Saviours’ Day Address.” They told me, “Yes.” I was satisfied.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan delivered a powerful speech titled “One Nation Under God” on the 25th.

Brother Cedric recently wrote me this: “Here is some of my recollection of watching Saviours’ Day with you Brother Jabril February 2007. Your actual words, to the best of my recollection, of course you additionally used body language and your hands to communicate with us that day.

“During the Saviours’ Day 2007 speech you said that ‘This speech is Big,’ and that the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan ‘shared with me’ its content, in an outlined sense prior to delivering it. You (Brother Jabril) said that it was ‘the kind of speech you break into sections.’ While watching it you marveled at the Minister’s unique ‘ability’ to communicate.

“When the speech would have interruption and technical breaks in it, you would give commentary to what Minister Farrakhan was saying, again referencing what you called ‘bullet points’ of what the Minister told you he intended to say, by the help of Allah.

“You told us that the Minister ‘was designed perfectly’ to do what he does.”

More on that scene, next issue, Allah willing.

This book, Closing The Gap, is filled with evidence of the truth that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad told Minister Farrakhan for us and others: “I taught you like I taught the rest. But only Allah made you able to put the teachings together in the unique way that you have of putting the teachings together. Allah prepared you for me.”

Jabril Muhammad: Adversity was the constant companion of this outstandingly great composer, Beethoven, yet he persevered. What accounted for his perseverance and success in spite of his adversities?

Minister Farrakhan: He suffered the adversity of being dark skinned in a culture or society that would one day accept an Aryan philosophy at the apex of White supremacy.

I read that he spent considerable amounts of money trying to prove the nobility of his birth. I read that he was unfulfilled in terms of marriage and having a companion at his side, whom he truly loved and by whom he would have children.

Then the greatest adversity in his life was at the age of forty, when he began losing the ability to hear. Yet the greatest of his compositions, according to those who study music in colleges, tell us that these compositions that he created on his going deaf and at his deafness were the greatest of all his compositions.

This meant that he had to rely on an inner strength and an inner connection to the God Who created sound and gave each creature a sound that is unique to that creature. So when he came to the point where he could no longer hear the sound, he had to remember; he had to dig deep in his capacity to remember the sounds of birds and he imitated that in his music.

He heard from the inner ear what God allows us at times, to hear, the unspoken as though he actually heard it spoken and to see the unseen, as if he were looking at it. He got in touch with the greater power of seeing and hearing, which afforded him the opportunity to make his greatest contribution to music, which meant he had to get in touch with God, on a more profound level.

His adversity, not only put him on a deep musical journey within, but it also took him on a deep spiritual journey, where he became more and more in tune with the God, Who created him and gave him this marvelous gift.

But as you raise this question, I thought of the teachings of the most Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Adversity accompanied God’s Self-creation. So it’s natural for adversity to accompany everything of value, and it must be accompanied by adversity. Adversity becomes the mother, out of which creativity and the genius or the spirit of God is made manifest.

Out of the darkness of space and the adversity of overcoming nothingness, came sun, moon, stars, life; all forms of life. So when one is created in the image of God, that means that adversity will accompany that life. This is why the Qur’an says, “Allah has ordained struggle.”

Struggle means that there is something that you must move against that is a natural impediment to prove yourself. You have to break through that impediment. What flows from that is a creation (one’s self) that glorifies God.

Brother Jabril: Every one of us who really knows you, knows that you have had especially since the departure of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, to deal with an unusual degree of adversity. Not just in the light of what you said, but in the light of all that you have learned from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and from your life’s experiences. Please explain, what has gotten you to this point, through the non-stop adversities in your life? How have you used adversity for your own growth and to advance the divine cause?

Minister Farrakhan: One can never overcome the natural obstacles and impediments to one’s growth without faith in God; that tells us that this that is in front of us is not an immovable object. So Jesus said, “If you had faith the grain of a mustard seed, you could say to the mountain, be removed and it would be so. Or you could say to the sycamore tree, be uprooted and be planted in the depth of the sea.

Faith in God is the prerequisite to overcome adversity. With a Muslim, when we say, “Bismillah-Rahman-Rahim,” it is a prayer seeking the help of Allah to help us in whatever we are engaged in.

Is there anything that we cannot do with the help of God and belief that you have His support? This is why the most Honorable Elijah Muhammad said to me, when David went after Goliath, he picked up five smooth stones from a brook, but he only used one. He said that that one was “Bismillah–In the name of Allah.”

Every prophet of God, though one person, was able to do just magnificent things in the name and with the help of God. So all of us today are called to the apparent impossible–to raise a people from the dead; to overcome the adversity of a negative world; to plant and nurture the seed of a new world; and overcome all opposition to that truth until that truth is firmly established in the hearts and minds of the people. But it can only be done in the name and with the help of Almighty God Allah.

This is from “Closing the Gap,” pages 129-130.

More next issue, Allah willing