In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

The message in the mouth of the messenger that comes at the end of the world condemns a whole world. It’s not a man talking about a nation or a ruler or a king or government or a system. This is a message that condemns rulers, all of them; systems, all of them; nations, all of them; the religions of the world, all of them.

That means that the whole world will come against that individual because nobody wants to believe that they are wrong or in error. Everybody wants to believe that they are right. But if we were right, then we would have a significant impact on Satan’s world.

Being right in the mosque doesn’t mean anything. Being right in the church or in the temple doesn’t mean anything. There is a world out there that needs to be conquered for God. The real work is in the streets.

When that man appears, he will be opposed by the ruling order of the present world because his presence alone means the end of their world.

So the object of Satan is to stop the increase of the man of God, to confuse the people about the man of God, to throw a veil over the man of God and, ultimately, to kill the man of God and all those that believe in the man of God because to believe in him is to receive the same anointing that he’s anointed with.

The Holy Qur’an says of the messenger, “Oh, messenger, deliver that which has been revealed to thee from thy Lord. And if thou do it not, thou has not delivered His message. And Allah will protect thee from men. Surely Allah guides not the disbelieving people.”

What is Allah (God) saying to the messenger? Allah is saying, “Don’t be afraid. I know you are going to be attacked, but Me, and Me alone, should you fear. They are going to call you a liar when you say that you are My messenger.

But I will bear witness that you are the messenger, but you’ve got to deliver the message. And if you deliver the message, surely I will protect you from the men that will attempt to kill you for delivering that message.”

This teaches us the inherent danger that is embodied in delivering that kind of message. But the messenger is told by Allah, if you don’t deliver the message you are not My messenger.

In other words, it is the duty of the messenger, without fear of consequences, to deliver the message that bears witness that this person is the messenger of God. And the promise of God is that He will protect the message and the messenger from the plotting of those who feel that it is their duty to take the messenger’s life and destroy the power of the truth of his message.

When God comes, His presence in the world is a declaration of war. It is written that on the coming of God, He will uproot the wicked and leave them neither root nor branch. If something is plucked up by the root, it will never grow again.

The clashing of these two worlds puts the people in the valley of decision. Once the truth is made known to you, then you must decide which world you want to be a part of. If Satan’s world is exposed and Satan, himself, is exposed, do you want him for your friend?

You’ve got to make a decision that nobody can make for you. Your life is the sum total of the decisions that you make, and this is the most important decision in your life.

When Allah (God) comes, He is bringing in a New World. Satan is trying to hold on to his world. So the message and the messenger is what Satan will oppose with all of his power.

Therefore, the messenger and those who believe in the messenger must be of a certain quality and character to be able to withstand Satan and his tremendous opposition.

None of the prophets, no matter how firm they were with the message that Allah gave them, were able to keep their followers and their community from being deceived by Satan after that prophet left the world.

Moses kept his community together until he went to the mountains to receive the law. Then Satan upset his community. After he went up again into the mountains to die, Joshua did well but he could not hold the community together.

The community that is called Jewish is a divided community today. Their community is beset by problems caused by deviation from the laws, statutes, and commandments of Allah (God) that He gave them through the mouth of their prophets.

As long as Jesus was in the world, he kept the community together. But when Jesus left the world, the apostles did the best they could but the early church was filled with division and strife because Satan was present.

After the death of Jesus and his “resurrection”, Christianity did not start again where Jesus taught and lived—in the tiny state of Palestine that is now called Israel. It started again in Rome in 325 A.D. when the rulers got together to decide what they would believe in, and out of that came the Nicene Creed.

So the Christian house is divided. Who divided you after Christ came to unite the followers under the Gospel? Satan divided you.

What about the Muslims? The community of Muhammad was beautiful while he was in the world. But even while he was in the world, the seed of satanic minds was among some of his followers.

Satan could not win while Muhammad was present, but after he was gone the community became divided. And the Holy Qur’an teaches, “And they did not become divided until after knowledge came to them. And they became divided due to envy.”

What causes the division among us? Envy! And envy is the most irredeemable emotion in the human being. When one person envies another, that spirit is the spirit of Satan. Envy is in the church; envy is in the mosque; envy is in the synagogue; envy is in the world. Satan runs any place where envy is the order of the day.

I know there are sincere Muslims all over the world, as there are sincere Christians who want the purity of that faith and really are disturbed at what they see and hear going on in the name of Jesus.

I respectfully say to Christians that Jesus would be classified as homophobic in today’s world because Jesus said that he wouldn’t admit the effeminate into his Kingdom, neither the liar, the adulterer nor the fornicator. His kingdom is going to be righteous.

That means if we are doing those things, we’ve got to clean ourselves up. Jesus said, “wash and be clean.” Dirty people can’t claim Jesus. I don’t mean just dirty on the outside. The real filth and the real dirt is the dirt that is on the heart of those who claim to worship Almighty God.

Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, all have deviated from the original path. Satan has devoured the entire world, but there is a remnant that Satan has not overlooked, he just has not been able to get them.

And out of that remnant, Allah will take over the world and rule it again forever. Satan was given a season and a time to do his work and, according to the Bible, he was given six days, but on the seventh day he would have to rest from his labor.

The Bible teaches that a day with the Lord is as 1,000 years. So, for six thousand years Satan will rule. Again, the Bible teaches that God’s rule comes after the working of Satan. After! If Satan is going to rule for 6,000 years, then we can’t look for God’s presence in the world until the time of Satan’s rule is up.

Don’t you want to see a change in the people in your community, synagogue, church, mosque, that when you walk among your own people that claim they believe like you, that you can feel the presence of God?

Don’t you want to feel that when you come out of your house with your babies, that you can walk the streets of your community without fear that some foolish person will drive by and kill your babies because of gang warfare. Satan rules the streets, but you want to see a change.

That means that you have to make a decision to accept that truth that will give you the power to go back from here, or from the church, or from the mosque, and start in your house and change your family.

You must start in the community and begin changing the people from Satan’s way to God’s way. After a while, when you look around Satan will be leaving and God will be coming in. And before you know it the whole spirit in the community will take on a change.

To be continued, Insha’Allah.

The post The Ultimate Decision: Will you choose God’s world or Satan’s? appeared first on Final Call News.

[Editor’s note: In an exclusive interview with The Final Call eight years after the overwhelming success of the Million Man March, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan shares his reflections on maintaining unity, developing international relationships, enduring media and government attacks, and sacrificing to build a better world. This text originally appeared in Vol. 23, No. 5, November 4, 2003.]

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

The Final Call (FC): What did Allah (God) allow you to see that sparked the call for the Million Man March?

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan (MLF): I was shown in a vision-like experience that the President of the United States in early September of 1985 had met with his Joint Chiefs of Staff to plan a war. I was told that I should make it known and tell the world that I got this information from Elijah Muhammad from where he was at the time. He said he was on the Great Wheel.

As time went on, I learned that the government of the United States had planned a war with Libya, and I recognized that that war was on two fronts: one dealing with the Libyan-Arab Jamahiriya; the second dealing with Black youth in the streets of America.

This insight caused me to go on a tour to stop the killing, and then another tour to speak to men only about the condition of the Black man in America. Out of that came the call for the Million Man March.

FC: How was the aim and purpose of the March directly linked to the insight that Allah (God) gave you? What did you hope the March would achieve?

MLF: During that time period, there was the arrival on the scene of crack cocaine; an increase in gang activity starting on the West Coast moving eastward with the Bloods and the Crips; and movies that portrayed our youth throughout the world, like “Colors” and “Menace to Society” that put Black men in particular, in a very ugly light. So that call for the Million Man March then led to efforts to organize for the success of it.

FC: Please share your vision of the success of the March at that time, what you felt it produced then and since then?

MLF: We knew from the tremendous turnout of Black men that it was a great success; the unity that was present, the peace that was present. The commitment of those men to make life better for their wives and children, and to bring a greater amount of peace and security to our communities, that remained to be seen—whether we would follow through on that commitment.

There was great fear that these men would act in a way that would create the necessity of the National Guard, federal troops and others to intervene. So, government—city and federal—closed down on that day, and the Million Man March became a major media event. This worldwide media attention put the nearly two million Black men who were present, and all of those who spoke, in the view of billions of people around the planet.

The way the March was characterized by the media caused me to be somewhat depressed, and I went into solitude and quiet to ask Allah’s (God’s) guidance for what the next step should be.

FC: Can you elaborate on how the media portrayed the March?

MLF: First, they played down the numbers that were present. They mocked the value of the speech that I gave. Others tried to separate the success of the March from the man in whom Allah (God) had deposited the idea for the March.

I asked those men to join an organization of their choice that is working to better our condition. I also asked them to join a church, mosque, synagogue, or temple of their choice that would re-ignite spiritual values in our young men. As a result, organizations, churches and mosques grew with Black male participation.

So, in my solitude, I reflected on the actual fact that the President of the United States went to the Egyptian leadership and government asking them to send troops on the ground to attack Libya and promising to give them air cover, while CIA operatives in Libya would rise up internally against Muammar Gadhafi. As I looked at the geographical position of Egypt, seeing that it was east of Libya, and feeling that the government and the media propagation would try to say to the Muslim world that we, in the Nation of Islam were not true Muslims, I decided that I should go East in order to connect the Nation of Islam with our Muslim brothers and sisters throughout the world, and also to connect the struggle of Black people in America to the struggle of Black people and Indigenous people throughout the planet. As I reflected on my more-than-a-vision experience, it came to me that I should cement friendships with Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

FC: You are referring to your World Friendship Tours, after which you began another national tour to explain your motive, because of more negative media attention on your tours. Why did the media and the government continue to take a negative position?

MLF: There never has been a desire on the part of the government that the struggle of Black people in America should be linked to the struggle of our people in every part of the earth. Every leader that was international in scope and in reach became the target of the government—Paul Robeson, Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Kwame Ture and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Any Black leader who would try to connect us to our brothers and sisters in Africa and Asia were seen as a threat and became a target.

This is written in the prophecies of the Old Testament—that the enemy, Pharaoh, saw the Children of Israel multiplying and that they would try to unite with an enemy and come against them. So, they devised a plan, not only to cut the Children of Israel off inside the house of their torment, but to keep them from being in unity with anybody outside of Egypt that Egypt believed was its enemy.

If you look at our leaders historically, all of them were persecuted. I don’t believe we have ever had a Black leader that was so widely accepted among the masses of people, as well as the leadership, in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Caribbean, Central America, as Allah (God) has blessed me to be accepted. Thus, this meant to the government that I was indeed a threat. The movement of us to link with our people around the world was also seen as a threat.

FC: What is it that we, as a people, are headed for, in relation to our enemy’s plan, that would make the Million Man March and your World Friendship Tours impact that journey?

MLF: Everywhere we went in the world on behalf of our people we were received as a head of state. Both the leadership and the people saw the Black male in a different light than the savage condition that was being projected by Hollywood. The people of the world saw Black men now as a potential force politically that might impact and make positive change in the way the government formulated its policy toward Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Central and South America and Asia. The Million Man March, in one day, helped to defeat all of the evil propaganda spread about Black men throughout the world.

FC: What benefits of your World Friendship Tours do we enjoy today? And how will we benefit in the future from cementing those friendships?

MLF: We are blessed to grow up in a country that is the world’s leader. We are blessed to be some of the most well-educated Black persons anywhere to be found in the world. This education and talent can be used in a friendly relationship with Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean and Asia to develop the wealth and resources of these nations. The friendship of us with our kith and kin around the world would cause both sides to benefit exponentially, based upon how well we develop these relationships.

FC: I want to get back to a point that you had made earlier in reference to the attack on youth. In 1997, you convened a Hip Hop Summit that brought peace to a feud between East and West Coast rappers. Now, we are facing a similar feud. What lessons did we learn in 1997 and perhaps have now forgotten?

MLF: The lesson learned by those who learned the lesson causes those who learned the lesson not to repeat the error or mistake that caused that split, which caused the loss of life of Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur and others.

As time moves on, a new generation arises that may not have experienced what the former generation of rappers experienced. So, the wisdom gained from the learning of that lesson has to be passed on to succeeding generations, otherwise the enemy will cause what was to become what is and to destroy the future of what could be. So, with God’s help, we will work to diffuse this kind of thing again.

FC: In light of the worsening conditions in our communities, with Black men in particular, is there a need for another Million Man March, or do we miss the point in seeking to recreate what happened in 1995?

MLF: It’s not necessary to have another March. The worsening conditions in our community is not necessarily directed toward those men who came to the Million Man March and are still working as mentors and in business, education, politics, and other areas to make the condition of our people better. As the condition of America and the world degenerates, it is we who are the weak or the poor or the ignorant who feel it worse.

Now we have to think, not in terms of what is good for an individual or a segment of the population or an organization or a sect of Christianity or Islam or Judaism, we have to think today of what is in the best interest of the whole of our people. The conditions that we are suffering force us to address the real issues that affect the life and well-being of the majority of our people. That is why the call for reparations and justice in dealing with the problems of Black people is so relevant now.

FC: Why was it significant that the men paid their own way to the March?

MLF: The Million Man March was held on a Monday. Most marches were always held on a weekend and most marches were paid for by philanthropic groups and organizations and labor unions, etc. So, the people who came did not necessarily have to make a great sacrifice to be there.

Our going to Washington was not to petition government, but to petition our God and Creator, that we may regain His favor and come into a position of power with Him that would allow us to correct our own condition.

I wanted to see if we, as men, in the spirit of atonement, reconciliation and responsibility, would accept the responsibility to be there on our own, to pay our own way, to stand in front of God and each other, after having made a sacrifice of that day of work, of school, that we were not going to go into any place of business or spend money on that day; that we were going to fast and pray and meet in our churches and meet in our mosques and in our homes to reconcile differences. It wasn’t just the March itself, but it was the whole country of our people involved in a Holy Day of Atonement.

God showed us, on that day, His favor. I learned that the National Security Agency of the United States Government had recruited some of our young people to come to the March to create a problem. But the spirit of the brothers that were there was so strong that they could not. The favor of God was on us, so that those nearly two million men were present and there was not one arrest, and the crime in Washington, D.C., on that day was almost zero.

From the Million Man March to this day, the crime and murder rates have significantly decreased in the major cities of America, according to police reports. I believe that the Million Man March was a significant part of the reason for the decrease.

There was greater voter registration and voter participation by Black men since that time and an increase in economic enterprise and entrepreneurial spirit among Black men. So, there’s great benefit that has come from it, but in order for us to truly be free, even greater sacrifice will have to be made by all of us.

FC: In your 2003 Holy Day of Atonement address, you outright declared that, “this government of the United States is our worst enemy.” Why is it necessary to keep that at the forefront of our minds, in light of all the positive things that you just pointed out?

MLF: As long as the Children of Israel saw Pharaoh as a friend, they could not see Moses and Jehovah as their true friend. As they came into consciousness—by the wicked things that Pharaoh continued to do against them—that Pharaoh was indeed their enemy, then Moses and Jehovah’s call to them to separate from Pharaoh to build a nation of their own became a reality.

As long as we see America and her wealth as something that we want, we will never leave Pharaoh. As God’s hand touched the wealth of Pharaoh, it is now touching the wealth of America. As the Black man and woman become more awakened to the wicked machinations of government, the aim is the same today: We should never be free of their influence and power.

As Abraham Lincoln said, if there is to be a superior position, he would rather that superior position be assigned to the White race. That superior position must be protected by those who believe in White supremacy and they will do everything in their power to make sure that that position will always be throughout the generations.

So, our path is clear: We refuse to be inferior. We want to be exactly what Allah (God) has desired for us to be and we can’t be that in their house. We either have to take over their house or go and build a house of our own.

FC: Let’s focus on your critics and their attacks on your credibility. The Nation of Islam won a discrimination lawsuit brought by a woman in Boston against the Men’s Only meeting held there, as part of the two-year organizing effort for the March. Why did you choose to put the men first? What didn’t that sister, and others like her who criticized this aspect, understand about your motive?

MLF: Why, in the scriptures of the Bible and Holy Qur’an, did God create man first? I believe that we are in the genesis or the beginning or the birth of a new world order, so then man and woman have to be made new again. We started where God started—with men. If we can reform the man and make him a better man and a God-fearing man, then we have a chance, we believe, to build a better world.

Our talking to men may have been seen by some as a threat to women, but most Black women loved the idea of our trying to raise the level of consciousness of Black men. Many mothers brought their sons to the “men-only” meetings; many wives encouraged their husbands to come. When the women at home saw what the men committed themselves to do, they rejoiced. And, in fact, the Million Man March would never have been successful if it were not for the women who stood with us and helped to organize to make the March what it eventually became.

FC: Why was it important to conduct and publicize the complete audit of the Million Man March?

MLF: The enemy has always been able to point the finger of suspicion and/or guilt to Black leaders that they are enriching themselves at the expense of the people. Before the Million Man March took place, in my hotel room a very highly respected AME Bishop asked me two questions. One was about proselytizing Islam on that day where we had unprecedented Christian support. I told him that was not my purpose; that I would send these men to join mosques, synagogues, churches and temples. Secondly, he asked, what about the money? I said I would hire respected CPA firms, make a complete audit, and give to the world the results of that audit. I gave my word and I fulfilled my word.

A lot of the money that we saw in the hands of people we couldn’t collect because the lines were so tight, there was no aisle to go through. But whatever we were blessed to get, within three months or so, we had the complete audit of every aspect of the Million Man March. The press was called; and, of course, they who were pointing this finger of suspicion at us, now when the audit was a reality, they wouldn’t spread the news that the Minister had fulfilled his word.

This is the first march that we know of that was paid for completely by the people. We ended up with a loss, which the Nation of Islam paid. The Nation of Islam was the biggest contributor to the Million Man March, but poor people gave their nickels, dimes and dollars; some wealthy Black people gave money to make that March a success—and every nickel, every dime, every dollar was accounted for.

FC: You mentioned that there was unprecedented unity between Muslim and Christian communities and organizations. There are now leaders who have been taking credit for the March when they only participated but were not instrumental in organizing it. How can this play into the enemy’s plan to break that unity, and how can we avoid it?

MLF: The Minister was used by God to call the Million Man March. The Nation of Islam became the principle organizer, but all who participated can take credit because we didn’t do it by ourselves. Every brother, every sister, all of the local organizing committees, there were countless hundreds of persons who helped to organize the success of this March. The Minister can only say with truth that Allah (God) inspired him with the idea. It was hundreds, maybe even thousands, that helped in the organization of the March that made it successful. So, all can claim it as theirs and that will never break our unity, except that any of us become vain.

I could never take credit for this great event. That’s why on October 16, the eighth anniversary of the March, I asked the question from the scripture, will a man rob God? The scripture says not only in tithes and offerings, but man will rob God of the credit that He is due. If I ever tried to take credit for what God deserves the credit, He would be displeased with me, and I’m more interested in pleasing Him than pleasing ego or vanity.

So, all who participated, all who helped to organize, all that worked, are the organizers of the Million Man March. And in its success, all who worked can claim their part of its success.

FC: Since the initial days after the March, what do you see as a continuation of the enemy’s effort to attack your credibility? The most recent example is the sniper murder case, where it was often repeated on the news that the suspect attended the Million Man March.

MLF: At the Million Man March, a group of brilliant young men and women, the Wellington Group, did a poll that determined that 80-85 percent of the men who were present claimed Christianity as their religion. Twelve percent said they were Muslims and the remaining percentage was other. When it was known that a Muslim made a call and 85 percent or so of those who answered that call were Christians, it was decided at another level that never again should a Muslim make a call and Christians respond.

As I went about the country again thanking the people for their support and encouraging the principles of the March, I found that, in the churches that were opened to me during the Men’s Only Tour and in the pastors that I talked to, there was a new spirit. The 700 Club and other religious broadcasters were painting Louis Farrakhan as the anti-Christ.

Five years after the success of the Million Man March, we were able to go back to the Mall on Washington for the Million Family March. There were a little over 1.2 or 1.3 million people. Although less than the success of the Million Man March, it was a great success again, and it showed the Minister’s impact still with Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Native Americans and Hebrews.

So, they were unsuccessful in destroying the beautiful unity created by the Million Man March, but there definitely was—and is—a great effort to erode that working together of Muslims and Christians for the benefit of our total community.

Now, to answer the other part of your question, John Allen Muhammad was definitely at the Million Man March. Of those two million men at the March, I don’t know how many have had some run in with the law or have been institutionalized or are on probation, etc. But we are not responsible for the behavior of anyone that goes contrary to what we teach, any more than the Pope of Rome or the Archbishop of Canterbury or a religious leader who teaches moral law and values can be charged with the errant behavior of a parishioner or congregant who may violate their moral teachings. That is on the individual.

I don’t know of Brother John Allen Muhammad’s guilt in this, but he definitely was a member of the Nation of Islam. At the time of his arrest and being charged, he was not in good standing with the mosque. They’re saying that the Minister taught him hatred and this is the reason why he did what he did. But he was also a member of the armed forces of the United States of America. Did they teach him hatred? We certainly didn’t teach him how to shoot a rifle. He learned that from whomever his teachers were; we were not that.

These are all part of the ongoing effort to discredit the Minister and the Nation of Islam as terrorists, because we disagree with the government’s position with respect to the war, which is our right to do. But to link us with terrorists and terrorism is a big, big stretch.

FC: There has been very little publicity overall about the Nation of Islam. Is that because the Nation is not doing anything worth mentioning in the public or because of some other motive to ignore the works of the Nation and separate the Nation from you?

MLF: The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said no matter how much they attacked him and the Nation of Islam under his leadership, they only helped the Nation to grow. So, the more they attacked me and the more I withstood that onslaught, the more thousands of people came out to, at least, hear a man that was being so vilified in the media. When they recognized that they were not hurting but helping me, they decided they wouldn’t say anything except to continue to discredit. So, there is a conscious effort not to publicize anything that the Nation is doing of value.

But we are not a creature of the media, so we are not depending on the media publicizing us to make us successful. The media can if they will, and they don’t have to if they don’t wish to. Our work is the work of resurrection and reform of our people and we will continue that work, in the light of the media or out of the light of the media. Our success depends on us, our unity, and our willingness to submit to the will of Allah (God).

FC: What I just heard in your answer was that much of our strength, or all of our strength really, comes from seeing you properly and seeing you in response to what is done to you. What enables you to withstand these attacks?

MLF: We must remember that it is written that we would undergo these kinds of attacks. In the Bible and Holy Qur’an, God shows us through the life of His prophets and messengers that none of them came into the world to do their work without severe opposition against them. That was with Abraham, Noah, Lot, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, peace be upon them all and all the prophets and messengers in between. That is our role today.

If we do what Allah (God) has asked us to do—to unite on the basis of truth, to reform our lives, to civilize ourselves and others, and to form a nation for His glory—and we are attacked by the government and maligned and evil spoken of, that is exactly why Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount said, “Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for My namesake.”

Then, Jesus said when these kind of things happen, we should not be sad by it and walk around with our shoulders drooped and our head hung down; we should rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is our reward in heaven, for so did they, the prophets that were before us.

So, we are in a prophetic mode. We cannot escape what the prophets of God did not escape. If we bear it patiently and remain strong and united, Allah (God) says in the Qur’an that He loves those who are patient and steadfast under trial. We want to be those whom Allah (God) loves.

FC: Thank you.

The post The Million Man March: Past, Present and Future appeared first on Final Call News.

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

THERE IS AN INCREASINGLY conservative and hostile climate growing in America towards the aspirations of Black people and people of color for justice.

The “Contract with America,” proposed by the Republicans and thus far agreed to by the Congress is turning back the hands of time, depriving the Black community of many of the gains made through the suffering and sacrifice of our fellow advocates of change during the ‘50s and ‘60s.

The recent Supreme Court decision on Affirmative Action has set the stage in the U.S. for closing the doors, thereby impeding the progress made in Black enrollment, and graduation from colleges and universities; and minimizing business opportunities and the hiring of Black Americans in the public and private sectors.

Each day, somewhere in this nation, the Black community witnesses and falls prey to an increased rate of crime and violence. Aspects of the “Crime Bill” suggest that Black males will be filling the jails of America and will spend the rest of their lives working for little or no pay in the new prison-industrial coalition.

The unfair use of the death penalty to punish the Black male is in fact a systematic genocidal tool being institutionalized to significantly decrease the Black population.

The proliferation of drugs and gun-related violence in the Black community, and the escalation of Black male fratricide has diminished the positive role and attributes of Black men, and instead has elevated ugly images of Black men as thieves, criminals, and savages—projected through movies, music and other communications, technologies throughout the world.

The epitome of these major challenges to the Black male and our community is this mounting force of hate being built against our people, particularly Black men.

We, therefore, have deemed it necessary in this critical hour to call for one million disciplined, committed, and dedicated Black men, from all walks of life in America, to march in Washington, D.C.—showing the world a vastly different picture of the Black male.

As the sons of a proud people, we are coming together and moving forward to chart the course for our future as responsible heads of our families; to reclaim and build our neighborhoods; to unify our families; to save our children who will lead us into the next In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful. millennium.

We recognize October 16th as “A Holy Day of Atonement and Reconciliation.” We believe that it is only when we are as one—at peace with ourselves and our Creator—can we then begin to reconcile ourselves with the Creator.

We then are fortified with the ability and the capacity to successfully reconcile our differences, and accelerate the upward mobility of the Black community.

We believe that as men, we must recognize and unconditionally Atone for the absence, in too many cases, of the Black male as the head of the household, positive role model and builder of our community. We believe that we must Atone for, and establish positive solutions to, the abuse and misuse of our women and girls.

Our presence in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, is a day set aside to reconcile our spiritual inner beings and to redirect our focus to developing our communities, strengthening our families, working to uphold and protect our civil and human rights, and empowering ourselves through the Spirit of God, more effective use of our dollars, and through the power of the vote.

We are asking all religious leaders of the various denominations of Christianity and the various Faith Traditions within the Black community to declare October 16, 1995, as a Holy Day of Atonement and Reconciliation—a day of fasting and prayer for those who are able.

This will be the first time since the institution of slavery that Black people would have declared a Holy Day for our people. We must designate and recognize this day in accordance with the Word of our Creator.

We are asking the Black woman, particularly our mothers, to be with our children teaching them the value of home, self-esteem, family, and unity; and to work with us to ensure the success of the March and our mission to improve the quality of life for our people.

We take this historical moment to recognize the major contributions that the Black woman has made, and continues to make, toward the advancement of our people.

Bonded under the guise of leadership and strength, we, as one people must come together to improve the quality of life for our children and for the Black family. For, the long and winding road that we must travel to define our future shall be determined by the depth of our unification.

We are asking that the church doors be opened and that all those who have differences within the congregation go to their house of worship to reconcile their differences.

Parents, our children, and members of our community should come together by the end of the day, at a religious temple of any denomination to pray for the success and well-being of the Black man, woman, and child, and our community.

We are asking all those who have not registered to vote to go to a house of worship on October 16th, to get registered. There are approximately eight million Black persons in the U.S. eligible to vote, but who remain unregistered.

Our goal is to have a registrar in as many churches as possible. There will be teachers present to provide guidance, instructions, and information.

The most critical election of this century will be held in 1996. This will be the last presidential election of the century. We are determined that never again shall any political party take the Black vote for granted.

We are asking that you join many of our leaders who have gathered together to develop a national agenda for our people, as a follow-up to the Million Man March. Religious, political, civic, and youth leaders will be called to come together to incorporate sound ideas and recommendations; and to amend and finalize this national platform of action.

We shall take this platform of action to various communities in America to hold town meetings to encourage the Black community’s input and secure our people’s approval and active support of this agenda.

We shall emphasize in our actions and in the written word that the Black community shall not give our vote to anyone who is against, or is not willing, to represent the best interests of our people.

We believe that by the grace and goodness of our Creator, the success we envision for the Million Man March, and beyond October 16, 1995—our first declared Holy Day of Atonement and Reconciliation—will be captured in the annals of history as a landmark period in which Black people came together to effect the greatest promise of change for Black people in America, and throughout the world.

The post Why a Million Man March? appeared first on Final Call News.

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

“Leadership” is undergirded by a Divine Principle. Some of us think that “good looks” make us “good leaders,” and maybe that’s why we’re in the shape that we’re in. “Leadership” is not for the arrogant.

Some think that “great articulation of words” and “beautiful speech” is what makes “good leaders,” and maybe that’s why we’re in the condition that we’re in, because we always choose leaders that can speak well, but don’t do well.

And we always choose leaders sometimes that appeal to our fancy of what “leadership” is without ever considering the Divine Principle that undergirds real, and true, leadership.

Black people today don’t need leaders who “wanna be”: Who are seeking somebody to carry their bags and to help us live better with finer cars and clothes, and homes in good neighborhoods—Black people don’t need that; enough of that! As the Qur’an says, “Away with” that!

But how would we choose? What standard would we use? And this is why the scripture teaches that when God chooses a leader, He does not look without. He looks within.

He chooses someone that maybe the people would never choose, because we are made to look upon the outside of a thing because we’re not wise enough to discern the Inner Principles that people have built their lives on! So I want to talk about the characteristics of leaders. …

Why does God look at the “heart”? The hearts of people are where their innermost motivations are hidden; people that have hidden agendas and mask it with noble words to enhance their “look” among the people. But God looks at the heart.

And the heart of those who will lead today and tomorrow: Let me describe those hearts, because you don’t want to be like what we have experienced.

Study the Book of John, Chapter 10. In Verse 8 Jesus said, “All that ever came before me were thieves and robbers. …”; then in Verse 11 he gives a Principle of Leadership: “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.”

Evidently there were a lot of bad shepherds around. … “But he that is an hireling”—who’s in it for the money; who’s in it for the lust of power and influence—“… seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth:

And the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.” (Verse 12) When “the wolf” comes, that kind of “hireling leadership” runs away. But the good shepherd will lay down his life for the sheep.

So to those who want to be leaders, and those who are currently playing the role and not doing so well: The Casting Director has been watching the “tryouts,” and you know how bad it is when you get “cut”?

However, it only takes one person to make The Change, and I hope that you are that one; or, you will be that one, and you will strive to be better than what was before you in order that we can advance our people beyond where they are.

True Leadership is in your worship and honor of God

The greatest characteristic that a leader must have is a four-letter word: Love. Because it’s only love of the people that puts their worth and value above your own! It’s love of the people that will put their lives above your own!

It is love of the people that will make you bear the insults of the people that you come to lead. Because Black people are difficult to lead, and if you don’t have love, they’ll wear you out!

So the question I would ask is, “Why do you want to lead?” Have you checked your heart? Do you love enough to suffer at the hands of your own people to advance us? And I’m not talking about this silly “emotion” that we describe as “love,” I’m talking about that Creative Force out of which The Almighty God Allah created the Universe.

Think about His Love for what He created: He regulated the affair of everything that He created, and He provided sustenance for everything that He created that it might fulfill its purpose.

True Leadership is in God, because only God loves to that degree! And those of You who would want to lead: We have to lead after God. “Well, I don’t believe in God!” Well, that’s okay, brother. But you won’t lead long. “Well wait a minute, man: Are you tellin’ me that I’ve gotta believe in God?” Well, let me ask you this: How did you get here? What Creative Force brought you here?

And Who originated that Force that attracted your mother to your father, and your father to your mother? Who created the sperm? And Who created the egg that brought you here? And if you have any gift at all, did you give it to yourself? Or did God give it to you?

Look at the Principle that Jesus articulated: “Not my will, but Thy Will be done.” So, to “worship God” and to “honor God” is one of the first Principles of Leadership!

According to the Book, he said, “I”—pay attention to his words—“can of myself do nothing; whatsoever the Father bids me to do, that I do.  And whatsoever the Father bids me to say, that I say.” Do you know how powerful that is?

When whatever God commands is what you do, and what you say? Have you noticed how people that are in leadership always use the personal pronoun “I,” and they never get anything done because “I can of myself do nothing”?

Only God has the right to say “I.” But all of us: The principle is “we.” And if as a person striving for leadership you cannot involve others, then you are not a good leader.

The Principle of Leadership is buried in the words that Jesus said, in the Book of Mark, Chapter 12: “… The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.”

“Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength”—that’s heavy! And why wouldn’t we? That means nobody else gets anything; it’s all for God. … Not nine-tenths, not 15 percent; not 99 percent!

All of it! And if you can’t “give it all” to Him Who gave it all for us, then leadership is not for you! That’s not for you because in The World to come that is now present in you, you’ve got to give it all up for Him Who gave you life.

“Well, who is ‘He’?” Well, by whatever name you call Him, you know Who I’m talking about! The Originator of it all.

True Leadership is in the love you have for the people

And the Second Commandment is like unto it: “Love your neighbor,” or your brother, “as yourself.” So without love, you can’t lead: You can’t lead if you don’t love Him Who created you; you can’t lead if you don’t love your brother. And you can’t lead if you don’t love yourself!

And if you’re a self-hating Black man or woman, get out of it, because leadership is not for you! How can you be a self-hating Black man or woman, and stand up in front of Black people, with your “light-skinned/dark-skinned,” “up-on-the-hill/down-in-the-valley,” “I got it, but you’ve got it to get” attitude?

See, when you love, you take a look at the condition of our people to see how terrible our condition is. But if you’re judging us, saying, “See that Nigga? He ain’t nothin’!” well how can you lead him if he or she is “nothing” in your mind?

As a leader, you have to look beyond, as that song in the church says “He looked beyond my faults and He saw my need!” And if you can’t think like that, get out of leadership because your people have faults, and so do we. So if you can’t look beyond the faults of others; if you can’t forgive and be merciful, compassionate, firm and strong in love, you can’t lead.

In the Book of Matthew, Chapter 20, verses 25-28: “… Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.

But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant …”—Boy! That’s a heavy principle. Can you serve people that you think you’re “better” than?

Then Jesus said, “Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister (unto others) …”—that means to “serve” others. So a “leader” has to be The Principal Servant of the people!

Now when “we serve,” on the plate that you’re serving your people must be The Answer—not to their “wants,” but to their needs, because every human need is a human right. So when you look at your people and see their needs, then as a “leader” or “one who aspires to leadership,” then you must examine your heart for “love,” and examine your heart for “service.”

But there is another most important characteristic that the leaders of this world do not have, which Jesus had with his Disciples: Big “ego” problems. The Disciples wanted to have the uppermost seats in the building. … You know how pseudo leaders are?

They come late, but, they want to come first! I mean, “right up front,” you know? And when they pray, they pray these long, heavy prayers; and when they give, they give to be “seen of men.” See, these kinds of “ego needs” start scratching you off for “leadership.”

Humility has to be a characteristic among leaders. We should not think more of ourselves than we should. And you know how we are: We’re so starved for “appreciation” and “ego gratification,” so we use leadership as a way to satisfy “ego needs.”

The Principle of Leadership is not based on “ego gratification.” The Principle of Leadership is based on serving, and seeing that the people whom you’re serving value the service, benefit from the service and grow from the service; in order, then, that they become that to others as you have become that to them.

Intelligence is the mark of a True Leader

Another example of leadership is in the study of “sperm.” When studied under a microscope, the sperm is observed “wiggling” as it’s going toward The Goal. The sperm’s tail is giving it “mobility,” but it is the head that knows exactly what it has to do. So intelligence is in the head of the sperm.

In “Leadership,” every head that leads must have the intelligence to know where you’re going! You can’t lead somebody else and don’t know where you are going! Where’s your destination? What do you want to lead them to? What is The Goal?

Consider the sperm: It presses on toward The Goal in a hostile environment; yet, never complains, “Damn! This is a rough environment! Look at all these other sperm, man, they’re running toward the same Goal! Only one of us is going to make it. … I better swim, man!”

And then they have to swim against gravity. So a lesson in this for leaders is to not complain that your cities are “hard”: “Oh man, Philadelphia’s a hard city!” Yeah, I know it is. … “These are the hardest-headed Negroes I’ve ever seen!”

Well, you’re one of them then! Hell, if it’s “too hard” for you, sit down! But if you’re the right man, you don’t care anything about “how hard” the people are; because if you’re the right one, He made you harder than them!

If their “hardness” is going to melt you down, then, well, you shouldn’t have started! “Oh man, the environment is tough out here, just tough! These some terrible Negroes, you know what I’m saying?” Why are you complaining?

The sperm wasn’t complaining: God tried it with a hostile environment, so don’t think that God is going to make it easy for us just because you want to help. You’ve got to set your mind for Struggle!

Intelligence is the mark of a leader. So in the “acquisition of knowledge,” you have got to know something in order to go someplace and take others with you. Allah (God) introduces Himself in the 2nd Surah of the Qur’an as “Alif Lam Mim,” which the scholars translate to mean:

“I, Allah, Am The Best Knower.” Well, if you’re going to lead people, you have to know more than the people that you’re trying to lead. You can’t arrogate to yourself that you do know, because your works will bear witness of you.

Now watch the makeup of your body: Your head is the leader of your body, right? I hope. … But some people’s bodies lead their head. Well, that’s “bad business,” because the head sees, the head hears, the head thinks, the head visions, the head speaks.

And the body follows. You started, and I started, from one cell; and now there are billions of cells in your one body, led by your head, so the Principle of Leadership is that you have to preserve your body.

If Self-Preservation is the First Law of Nature, then what does it take for you to preserve this gift that God has given you, which is life itself? What does it take? See, you have to know what this body needs. You have to know how to get what it needs. You have to use your hands to fashion the thing that will live after you are gone.

Practicalities of Leadership: Sufficing the Needs of the People

Leadership provides the needs of the people. Where Black people live in cities throughout America, there are food deserts. Once the people learn the value of good food, then as a leader, you want to be able to produce food—“if you’re going to lead, you have to feed.” Jesus fed The Multitude! Well, we might as well start! Feed yourself good health, but my point is: Leadership suffices needs.

How are you going to tell me that in Philadelphia young people are dropping out of school? Have you ever studied why? Do you think they’re stupid? Oh, but some of us that have our degrees may say:

“These stupid young people are quitting school!” Well, let me ask you a question: What had school done for you? I’m not knockin’ you; I’m asking a question, because if your degree has not made you productive, then it hasn’t served you well.

You have to learn what is requisite knowledge, what is proper knowledge. … Knowledge that suffices for The Time and The Circumstance that we have arrived at is The Knowledge that you have to get! And unfortunately, it’s not in the schools. These schools have been created by The Enemy to serve The Enemy!

You can get something out of it, but who wants to go to a restaurant, and in the kitchen it’s dirty; there’s fecal matter from mice and rats, and the service is bad? Well that’s what the schools are! It’s from a dying educational system based on White Supremacy that is finished!

“Well, Minister Farrakhan, what are we going to do?” You create a system of education! You’re not stupid people, you just act that way! But a Leader will arise to say, “Away with this!” and set down a New Educational Paradigm that is fit for The Time in which we live.

“Economic Development”: Do you think because we went out and voted en masse for our brother President Barack Obama, that he is a “magician”? Even Houdini couldn’t get out of the trap that he’s in!

He is part of a system; and he’s trying to save it! Sorry .… He’s late. And guess what? They’re not going to let him (President Obama) save them. Even though they need his kind of heart that he came with, that is gradually leaving him. …

Dear politicians, listen: I’m not against “politics,” but I know that you can’t solve the needs of the people. I know that! And the question is: When are you going to find it out? If you know that what you’re in cannot suffice the people’s needs, then what are you going to do?

Are you going to still stay there, and think about: “Vote for me! Vote for me! I’ll give you jobs!” You’re a damn liar! You can’t create any jobs for these people—not in that system!

Your political savvy is valuable, but we’ve got to find a way to use it in a way that we can create the jobs that we say we need, because America is finished creating jobs for her millions of unemployed—and us, too?

I have to tell you: We cannot sentence another generation of our people to the lie that “this system will work for them” because it’s not working for others! But it can be useful … .

So some practicalities of Leadership are: 1) Food, 2) Clothing, 3) Shelter, 4) Jobs, 5) Banking, 6) Trade and 7) Commerce. We have to be Masters of Industry.

The post Principles and Practices of Leadership to Suffice Our Needs appeared first on Final Call News.

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful. The One God to Whom all praise is due, The Lord of The Worlds. The Finder and the Life-Giver to us, the sleeping mentally dead nation in the wilderness of North America. We thank Allah for His coming in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad to Whom praise is due forever. And we could never thank Him enough for raising up in our midst the divine leader, teacher and guide, His messenger to us, The Messiah, The Exalted Christ, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

I greet all of you, my dear brothers and sisters, with the greeting words of peace: As-Salaam Alaikum.

We thank Allah for each and every one of you who are present here this afternoon. While I was out of the country last week, this thought came to me concerning today’s lecture. Those of us who are here, by the help of Allah, may, after the end of this lecture, consider yourselves fortunate.

Accept the nature in which Allah created you (a righteous Muslim)

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us that all of us, by nature, are Muslim. No matter what you call yourselves, God has declared you to be the righteous. We respect the names that you call yourselves, but The Best Knower has declared that you all are Muslims.

Now, before you reject that beautiful title, or name, let us understand what The Best Knower has said about that name. It is an Arabic word; therefore, we are not Arabic speaking people, so we are not expected to understand it readily. But the word “Muslim” means “one who submits his will or her will entirely to do the will of God.”

This is not a faith that you accept, it is really the nature in which God has created you that our 400 years of servitude under White people has taken us away from. So, we are not asking Black people to be “converted” to Islam, we are only asking you to accept what is yours and be yourself.

What is yourself? A righteous Muslim. Those two words seem to be a double positive. If you are a Muslim in submission to the will of God, you are already righteous. So why did the Honorable Elijah Muhammad have to say that we are righteous Muslims? 

[In English Lesson No. C1, the question is asked,] “Are there any Muslims other than righteous?” [to which the answer is given]: “I beg your pardon. I have never heard of one.”

Well, you know that if we are by nature Muslims, we are by circumstance other than our own selves. We are not righteous in our thinking, we are not righteous in our actions, even though we are righteous by nature.

But Master Fard Muhammad said, “I beg your pardon. I have never heard of one.” Somebody has begged our pardon. Even though we are born of the righteous, and are by nature righteous, we are, by circumstance, wicked; And if God does not pardon us, or have mercy upon us, then we would be destroyed along with our wicked oppressor. But God has pardoned our iniquities.

So, when you come to the Teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, it doesn’t matter what you did yesterday, your sin is forgiven.  A merciful God has intervened on our behalf and forgives whatever we have done of evil under the influence of our oppressor.

The Oath (Prayer) that we, as righteous Muslims, are required to make bond

The subject matter that I was given deals with a part of a prayer that each Muslim recites, at least each follower of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad recites, and this becomes an oath that we take.   As members of the F.O.I. and members of the M.G.T. Class, we take this as an oath, but it is a part of our prayer, and it is recited like this:

“My prayer, my sacrifice, my life and my death are all for Allah, The Lord of The Worlds.” That is a powerful expression, “My prayer, my sacrifice, my life and my death are all for Allah, The Lord of The Worlds.” Then we say: “No associate has He, and this am I commanded and I am of those who submit.”

When a person makes that kind of oath, there is a lot required of that person.

Let’s pay attention to the words again: “My prayer, my sacrifice, my life and my death are all for Allah, The Lord of The Worlds.” Now, to our visiting brothers and sisters, you may call God by a different name.

Some say “God,” some say “Jehovah,” some say “Shiloh,” some say, “God Almighty,” some say “Christ,” but whatever name you call Him by, all of the best names belong to Him.

But when you add all of those names together, we say the proper name of God is “Allah,” which means The One True God, The Originator of the heavens and the earth and all things in existence; The Creator. “My prayer, my sacrifice, my life and my death is all for Allah.”

Now tell me: What is an oath? If we are taking this as an oath, what is an “oath”? According to the dictionary, an “oath” is “a solemn appeal to God to witness one’s determination to speak the truth”; “a statement or a promise strengthened by such an appeal.”

When you go to court, you have to swear to tell the truth. When you take an oath of initiation into any organization or group that gives oaths, that should be a solemn appeal to witness our own determination that what we are saying, it is the truth, and we’ll do everything within our power to live up to the oath that we are taking.

“My prayer, my sacrifice, my life and my death is all for Allah, The Lord of The Worlds.” I can’t take an oath for my brother. I can’t take an oath for my mother. I can’t take an oath for my friend. An oath is something that each individual must make for his- or herself. “A solemn appeal to God to witness our determination to speak the truth.”

Allah knows whether we are liars or whether we are truthful. All of us have made pledges and broken most of them. Some of us have taken oaths and broken those. Some of us have taken vows to God and broken those. So if we break an oath or a vow, or a pledge to God, then nobody else has a chance.

But we as Muslims are taught in our Lessons: “Have not you learned that your word shall be Bond regardless of whom or what?” And our answer is: “Yes. My word is Bond and Bond is life, and I will give my life before my word shall fail.”

God, and His integrity, is wrapped up in His word! When God says a thing, you can bank on it! You can believe in it, you can trust in it, you can stand upon it, because God does not lie! Whatever God says, He already has the power to do it. And when He says it, it’s already a thing accomplished; all we have to do is be there if we are in the time of its fulfillment.

But consider this: Since we use the possessive pronoun in front of “prayer,” “sacrifice,” “life” and “death,” why should we use the possessive pronoun “my”? What do you really possess?

Think about it. What you are, or we are, you (we) had nothing to do with it. You don’t own the flesh that has made up your body. You don’t own the bones nor the blood. Do you? It’s not yours. The scriptures of the Bible teach, “It is a sure thing, you bring nothing into the world, therefore you can take nothing out.”

So, what did you own coming in here? Nothing! Nothing. The flesh that is on our bodies, it must return where? To the earth. The bone returns to the earth. The air that we breathe returns to the atmosphere. Come on! So what do you own? Nothing!

But yet, God gives us the privilege to say, “My prayer, my sacrifice, my life and my death.” Since we don’t own anything then my life is not really mine. Death is ordained. I didn’t bring myself into the world, nor can I take anything out. Then why should the term “my” be used?

In law they say, “possession is nine-tenths of the law,” meaning that the fact that someone possesses something carries a weight of 90 percent; that they are the legal owner of it. Possession doesn’t necessarily mean that it belongs to you, but it means that you have control over it.

Here, now, this is your life, this is your body: How much control do you exercise over what God has given you? When we first come into the world, our parents exercise control over this [our body]. They have a right to exercise control over it.

But the duty of the parent and the duty of the teacher is to steward that life in such a way that at a certain point that child will be mature enough to gain control over themselves.

So, this [body] that God has given you, He has given you a responsibility to control it; to become the manager of your flesh, the manager of your mind, the manager of your will, the manager of your talents, the manager of your gifts and the manager of your destiny.

Each of us, whether we believe it or not, has a great measure of control over our prayer, our sacrifice, our life, and we have a measure of control even of our death. We actually can determine not necessarily the time, unless you are suicidal. You actually can determine the spirit of your death; the way you expire. You can actually determine it.

I don’t mean whether you will die by gunshot or die by hanging; no, no, I don’t mean that. But I mean you can determine the state that you will be in at death. Mm! That’s powerful, to have that kind of control that you can determine the state that you will be in when death comes.

‘My Prayer’: The reaffirmation of our desires

“My prayer, my sacrifice, my life and my death is all for Allah, The Lord of The Worlds.” Now let’s deal with this word “prayer.” Many of us don’t think we “pray,” but there’s not a day that goes by that you don’t say a prayer—you don’t even recognize that it is a prayer!

According to a dictionary, they say that “prayer” is “a devout petition to and a spiritual communion with God or an object of worship.” Stop right there. It could be a connection to God, but it could be a connection to anything that you worship as a partner or associate with God. Also, “prayer” is “an entreaty, a supplication, thanksgiving, adoration, or even confession.”

Now look, I want you to bear with me … And I pray that Allah will bless every word that I speak in His Name, that it may mean something to you and me, and that we will be edified by what we hear and go away better than when we came in.

The Qur’an teaches us that Allah created us “complete, yet incomplete.” Anytime you are “incomplete,” you are imperfect. God created us in need, so anytime you are created in need, then there must be a supplier of what you need.

When a baby cries because it needs changing, or it’s hungry, the baby doesn’t know how to say, “O Allah!” But when the baby cries, that is its sincere supplication to somebody that can satisfy their need.

They didn’t put their hands up in a certain way, fold them in a certain way, go through certain rak’as, or positions of prayer. Their position is laying on their back, crying to the top of their voice. That is a prayer!

And when you hear the baby cry, then out of compassion that God has put in you, you answer that baby. If it’s a change of a diaper, if it is food, if it is something that is irritating the child, you try to remove it to give comfort to that child.

The child may not know how to say, “Thanks ma,” but it shows you, in its development, a “coo,” and it learns to smile, and to say to you in its way, “Thank you.”

Gratitude is absolutely a requirement of  God, that when you are given something you have to say, “Thank You.” When you receive something that you could not give yourself, God requires of you and me to be grateful.

Each of us receives something every day that we could not give ourselves, “but little it is,” The Qur’an says, “that we give thanks. Surely man is ungrateful.”

Since we are created in need, then every day we are asking somebody for something. We are human beings that are creatures of desire. Don’t you want something? Everybody in here wants something, don’t you? You do, don’t you? Sure, you do! I do.

Then if you want something, then you have to find the supplier of what you want. If you wake up this morning and you want some drugs, and you don’t have none in your possession, what do you gotta do? I’m putting it on, you know, in simple terms, brother. You’ve gotta go look for the supplier. Is that right?

Now the supplier may have what you want, and you have what he wants. He wants from you some money, and then he wants to make you addicted so that every day you’ll look for him. He doesn’t have to come looking for you, you will find him wherever he is when you need a fix. Then he becomes your supplier of your need.

Prayer is the reaffirmation of desire. We hang on to what we want in life by reaffirming or reidentifying our desire until we reach our goal. But if impatience comes and we don’t reach the goal as quickly as we desire, and we become irritated, which may threaten to cause us to turn away from our goal.

Then who do you go to, to reaffirm your desire so that you can endure the struggle to reach your goal? You go to The God, Who is The Author of desire. And when you go to Him, He gives you strength to endure another day as you move towards your goal.

‘My Prayer’: The way we express gratitude to The Supplier of our needs

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad gave us a prayer to say, and he said we should say it seven times a day. And at the end of that prayer, it reads: “O Allah! Suffice Thou me with what is lawful. Keep me away from what is prohibited. And with Thy grace, make me free from want of what is beside Thee.”

The beauty of that prayer is that a Muslim does not want to be dependent on any supplier that is another creature. The Muslim wants to depend on The Creator. The Muslim will thank God for one of the creatures through whom his wants or needs are supplied,

But he is never blinded by the intermediary; he always is grateful to The Source. A Muslim doesn’t want anything outside of what pleases God. That’s what makes a Muslim so special.

What do you want? If what you want is in the purview of what God’s will is, then you are on a right course. But when you desire things outside of God’s will, then you cannot expect His help in getting your desire.

Every day we seek something that we need. Some of us need a job. When you need a job, what do you do? You get up, you go downtown, or you go somewhere, you knock on a door, you fill out an application and you hope that that person will give you a job. You went to the middleman. You didn’t reach The Source.

Look. Brother, have you watched children when they want something? They [say,] “Gimme!” When you go downtown and you see a beggar, or a blind person with a cup, they’re shaking the cup, but it’s like in this (hands cupped) position.

Every time you ask, that’s a prayer. Who are you praying to? Do you follow what I’m saying? If you ask Brother Farrakhan for something, and I am able to give it to you, you should say, “thank you.” But Who should you thank first and foremost? Allah (God)! In fact, before you even come to Brother Farrakhan, or anybody, you should go first to God. I’ll tell you why in a minute.

Every time we look to somebody to help us meet our needs or our wants, that person is being placed by us in a position of power over granting what we desire. We are constantly seeking someone to aid us in the various relationships, a husband to a wife and a wife to a husband.

A parent to a child, a child to a parent, a teacher to a student, a student to a teacher, an employer to an employee, and vice versa. We find ourselves always looking to someone to help us.

But we must be careful when we look to somebody to help us, because then when they give us help we are now putting them in a position of power over us by supplying our need. Are they worthy of that?! …

When we give the power of our being over to those who facilitate our desire, not recognizing that they are not The Source of this, then we have a tendency to set up other gods beside Allah.

And this is hateful in the sight of Allah, that we would take someone of the creatures that supplies our need and then give the power of our being over to somebody who is, in another sense, as much in need as we are!

When you and I give the power of our being over to somebody else because they gave us something that we needed, we have set up another god beside God. Then in this, we have become polytheists—and God is ever against polytheism.

And so many of us who declare The One God are polytheistic. So many who declare Jesus are polytheistic. You talk Jesus, but you bow down to white folks! You talk God, but as soon as you have a need and somebody supplies that need, you start falling down, worshiping.

We worship our preachers. We worship our teachers. We worship our leaders. Wrong! Every teacher, every preacher, every leader, every messenger, every prophet of God is nothing more than a servant of God!

Why worship the servant when you can worship The God Who gave you the servant?! This is why we are always disappointed when our leaders die and leave us in the lurch. “O leader! Where are you?” “Well, I didn’t tell you to worship me from the beginning.”

If he’s any kind of leader, he will not allow you to worship him. If he’s any kind of teacher, he will move you beyond himself! If he is a prophet of God, he is not there to represent himself, he is there to represent The God.

Then look at the mistakes that the worshipers have made. The Jews sometimes talk more of Moses than of Jehovah. The Christians talk more of Jesus than they do of The Father. And Muslims, I must say, you talk more of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, than you do of Allah.

And when the prophet’s name is mentioned, there is a clamor in the mosque. When Allah’s name is mentioned, quiet. When Jesus’ name is mentioned there is a clamor in the church! When The Father’s name is mentioned, it’s quiet. You worship what God has given but not The God Who is The Giver of the gift!

Allah says He is The Granter of Security. He said He is The Life-Giver. He is The Beneficent. He is The Merciful. He is The Forgiving. He is The Lord of Grace. He is The Controller and Manager of All Affairs. He is The Author of All in Existence.

And He is The Nurturer of All Things, making them attain stage after stage until they reach perfection. God uses His creation to satisfy our wants and needs, but we should never give the honor to the creature before we give it to The Creator.

To be continued.

The post My Prayer, My Sacrifice, My Life and My Death are All for Allah, The Lord of The Worlds appeared first on Final Call News.

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

The Time of the Manifestation of Defects

Surah 29 of the Holy Qur’an is entitled, “The Spider.” The Spider is an interesting creature. It spins a web and lightweight creatures get caught in its web. After a fly or another insect gets caught in the web, the spider travels very quickly in that web, to its meal. It injects venom into the internal organs of the fly and breaks it down into a liquid. Then, the spider sucks the inside of the fly, leaving only the form, but it is no longer what it was.

If the fly does not get out of the trap within three seconds, it becomes the spider’s meal. The number “3” is important. How many days did Jesus descend into hell? But on the third day, he arose. Jesus told Peter, “Before the cock crows once, you will deny me thrice.” But he also told him not to worry because, after the third denial, he would stand up and return to his faith.

The spider spins its web from itself. Many say, “It’s not the man, it’s the plan. It’s not the White man, it’s the system.” But the system came from a man. So, don’t ever say it’s not the man, it’s the plan. The plan came out of a man. We used to sing a song in church, “The devil is mad and I’m so glad, ’cause he missed the soul that he thought he had.” The enemy of God is always working to trap us. Once he gets you in the web of his machination, scheme or plan, he moves quickly to inject you with a word that has a function–like a spider’s enzyme–that breaks down your spiritual form.

Many of you are really good people, despite how ugly or bad you may act, you are really good at the core. But you get trapped. What traps you? What tricks you? What grabs you, that allows Satan to get a hold on you? He comes after you in your own desires. “I’m a beautiful, young woman,” she says, “but I don’t have a man. So, I’m looking, hard.”

Satan always appears in the form of what you desire–and so does God. In the Holy Qur’an, Allah (God) said to Mary, “And you shall conceive and it will be a man child and he will be a prophet.” She said, “But how can I, when a man has not yet touched me?” And Allah (God) said, “That is easy for me. All I have to say is ‘Be!’ and it is.” In another part of the Holy Qur’an, it says, “And we sent her Our spirit and it appeared unto her in the form of a well-made man.” If God can send His spirit to fulfill the desire of a righteous woman, then the enemy can send his spirit in the form of a man to fulfill negative purposes for your life.

This is why the Bible says that you have to become wise to be able to discern the spirit, because the outward look is not important. It is the spirit that you must discern, because Satan, the Bible says, is able to transform himself into an angel of light. If Satan can do that, then Satan can appear to you in whatever form will please you.

You are looking for somebody to help you fulfill your desire: “I am a singer of songs, a writer of music, but I need a publisher. I need an agent. I need a manager.” “I’m a beautiful young lady. I have a nice form, I’m tall and thin and I would like to be a model.” “I’m a mathematician. I’m an engineer. I just graduated from Morehouse and I’m ready for a job.” “I saw a commercial for a beautiful Mitsubishi, BMW, Mercedes or Cadillac.”

You want something, but how do you get what you want and at what price? When Satan is after you, you have to give up something. For example, a nice young woman, a virgin, meets a nice young man on campus. She is attracted to him and he is attracted to her. He tells her, “So many girls are attracted to me, Sister. Are you going to give up your virginity, because I don’t have any time to waste on a girl who won’t give it up?” She thinks that young man is her friend, but he is spinning a web.

On the other hand, sometimes a young man may want a woman, but he says he is a Muslim trying to be right. She tells him, “But Brother, bring that Final Call newspaper over here ’cause, honey, I’m calling.” But if he responds, it might be his final call. Or, you may have just graduated from college and you go back to see your friends. They’re happy to see you. You’re clean now and you want to celebrate. Your buddy who grew up with you, but did not go to college, has some drugs in his pocket and wants you to go get high with him. Here comes Satan in the form of your friend, spinning a web. You may have three minutes to say, “No thank you, Brother, I’ll see you at another time.”

You cannot want to be righteous and hang out with people who do not want what is right. If you want to be right, you should hang out with people who want right and you will stay right. If you hang out with the wicked, it won’t be long before the spider has spun its web and then, with a few words, they break you down. Your resistance is gone. But it starts from within.

If Jesus was so beloved of God, but he had to be tried, then how can we escape being tried? Satan walked up to Jesus and told him, “Come up on this mountain with me. Take a walk with me.” This shows us that we have to walk with our trials. Satan told Jesus, “Look at all of those cities. I’m master over those cities. If you bow down to me, I’ll give you all of that.” But Jesus, in his mind, said, “I am destined to rule over the cities. I would rather wait on my Father to give the power to rule to me.” Then he said, “Get thee behind me, Satan.”

Some of us want things so bad that we compromise things of value to get something that you think is very valuable, but in actuality, is less valuable than what you gave up. A fair exchange is when you give up something to get something equal to what you gave up. But when you give up principle and lose your soul in the process, then whatever you get in that transaction does not benefit you. It could be a beautiful home, but you will not have any peace in it. It could be a nice car. It could be the man that you thought was the man of your dreams or the woman that you thought was the one you were looking for all your life.

If you have to compromise your principles and give up virtue to hold on to nothing, then you do not rejoice in the bargain that you made, that day. But Allah (God) says in the Holy Qur’an, “Rejoice in the bargain that you have made this day, for I have given you the Garden in exchange for your lives.” Then, Allah (God) tells us to rejoice in that bargain because, although your life was worthless, He asked you to give Him your worthless life so that He could give you the Paradise. When you make that bargain, that bargain gives you joy.

***

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad told me one day that the FBI was looking for him. Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor and the FBI wanted to arrest him. They could not afford to have him on the street preaching to Black people while America was trying to prosecute a war, because they have always wanted to use Black people–in wartime, at election time and any other time. So, they had come for him, but he walked down the stairs, right passed them; and they saw him and didn’t see him. When God wants to hide you, He can hide you in the open. He boarded a train to Philadelphia. He said that, while the sound of the tracks was coming up in his ears, he heard the voice of Master Fard Muhammad saying to him, “Do men think that they will be left alone on saying, ‘We believe’ and will not be tried? And indeed, we tried those before them. So, Allah will certainly know those who are true and He will know the liars.”

That’s all that he heard, but it was enough. When he reached Philadelphia, he made up his mind. He knew he was being tried, so he was going to go back and face his trial. So, now they have a picture of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, in handcuffs, walking between two FBI agents, as they took him to prison by an executive order of President Roosevelt. We may face an order like that today, because the war that America is now waging in the Middle East is going to get deeper and wider, and they will try to silence my voice and the voices of others. I am not afraid. If the president signs an executive order stating, “Farrakhan has to be arrested,” we will just see how that plays out–but no one who believes in God can escape being tried.

Trials are like tests. How well did you study? Some of us do not study, but still pass tests because we paid attention in class. Tests show us weakness. In order for Allah (God) to perfect His creation, He must manifest its weakness. So, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad calls this period “the Time of the Manifestation of Defects.” How do you know if what you created works until you test it? When you test it and see its weaknesses, you then say, “I have to fix that.” So it is with God. He wants to perfect us, so that He can use us for the redemption of our people and all of humanity. So, we have to be tried and our defects manifested in order for us to be perfected.

When you come into a place like the mosque, it can be very difficult. Imagine that you are sitting next to someone and you see boils pop out all over them. You may look horrified at them because you have not looked into a mirror to see boils are popping out all over you, too. Sometimes, the mosque can be an unbearable place, because the activity of the mosque and the workings of God bring out of us characteristics that we did not know were inside of us. The work of Jesus was casting out demons. Behind those smiles and greetings of “As-Salaam Alaikum,” there are a lot of demons. As we interact with the word, each other, the program, laborers and officials, demonic characteristics begin to come up and out of us.

You may doubt and say, “Well, maybe, I don’t belong here.” So, you run away but, when you look in the mirror, you no longer see your boils, because now you are not in an environment that is able to bring out what is inside of you. Instead, you melt to the poisoned environment of the world and become like what you have melted into. So, the web was spun, because you could not take the process of cleaning up. You can be a funky person on the outside of the mosque, but once you come inside the mosque, you cannot stay funky, because there is something in the mosque to clean and wash funk away. When you smell the funk of your Brother, you should check under your own arm. Allah (God) is working on us, but if you do not stay in the process, you will not see the result of yourself being made into Him.

“Do men think that they will be left alone on saying, ‘We believe’ and will not be tried, while others were tried before you?” So, expect a trial. Look for a trial. Allah (God) says in the Qur’an that He will try the Believers at least once a year, severely. How will He try us? Sometimes, if you know what’s on the test in advance–someone gave you the test in advance, and you wrote the answers on your hand–then you passed the test. Not with God. He tries us in a way that we least expect, but you cannot be tried except by what you love and desire.

In the Holy Qur’an, Allah (God) says to Prophet Muhammad, “Surely, I am going to try you with something of fear, hunger, loss of property, loss of life and diminution of fruit. But give good news to those who are patient and steadfast under trial.” But the good news only comes after you have been tested. The Holy Qur’an also says that “after difficulty, comes ease” and, in another place, it says, “with difficulty, comes ease.”

***

When you become afraid, it can cause you to compromise yourself. Challenge your fear to hold onto your principle and Allah (God) will strengthen you and reward you with victory. Do not allow yourself to be made afraid by an enemy who is always trying to offer you an advantage for betraying your beliefs. Do you want the advantages of the enemy more than you want the strength of your own soul? Do you want to be like the fly that looks like a fly on the outside, but all that made it a fly is gone from the inside? Muslims, Christians, Nationalists, Revolutionaries, all of us will be tried. The enemy wants to know if you are really sincere in what it is that you profess. He will keep sifting you until he finds your weakness and that is the door through which he comes to take your soul.

***

Jesus was a man that they were after before he was born. While his mother carried him in the womb, Herod sent out a decree to kill all boy babies from two years old and under. So, she had to flee and hide, but at a certain point Jesus had to return to Palestine to speak and prophesy to the Children of Israel. When he goes back, they hate him and his world, without a cause. He knew what it was like to be scorned, rebuked, hated, lied on and conspired against. None of that caused his character to waiver. Good news was for the one who was patient and steadfast under trial.

You say you love Jesus, but you do not want to follow him. It is not about singing songs or talking about how great Jesus is. The heavens and the earth testify to his greatness. He did not ask us to worship him; he asked us to follow him. He said, “If any man would be my disciple, he must first deny himself, pick up his cross.” You cannot carry Jesus’ cross. You have a cross, but you do not want to pick it up. You are people that want to get to heaven, but do not want to pay the price. You are a people that want your enemy out of the way, but you are not willing to sacrifice to make yourself into the man and woman who would make your enemy flee. You do not want to be rebuked and scorned by your people. You do not want to be lied on.

But if you do not want the cross, then you will never wear the crown. You can run and hide, but God is calling you. “Do men think that they will be left alone on saying ‘We believe’ and will not be tried?” The Masons say, “I’ve been tried, seldom denied, willing to be tried again.”

The post The Spider: No one who believes in God will escape being tried appeared first on Final Call News.

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

Brothers and Sisters, when Elijah Muhammad came among us, he taught what you could call a “Black Theology.” A lot of people were offended by that; turned off by that. In the Muslim world, they were angry. They said, “Islam does not teach color. What’s wrong with you people?” But they don’t know what happened to the Black people of America.

While standing before the Virginia House of Delegates on January 20, 1832, Mr. Henry Berry, Esq., made it clear what was needed to produce and maintain the condition of slavery.

He said: “Pass as severe laws as you will to keep these unfortunate creatures in ignorance, it is in vain, unless you can extinguish that spark of intellect which God has given them. Sir, we have, as far as possible, closed every avenue by which light might enter their minds.

We have only to go one step further—to extinguish the capacity to see the light—and our work will be completed. They would then be reduced to the level of the beasts of the field, and we should be safe… .”

And he said, “If they continue along that line,” Black people would be in a condition that we could never come out of.

Black people want to do something for self, but there’s something missing. If something is missing, then my question to you is: “Don’t we [Black people] need somebody to address us and our concerns? To raise us, reform us, transform us and make us again what God created us to be?

The Man that came to us from Mecca, we call Him Master Fard Muhammad. He had a Black father and a White mother.

That Man came to us first because our condition was worse. He was so skillful. He developed a Methodology, along with an Ideology that would start a Process of Transformation in our lives. There never was a people before the Black man and woman of America that are considered in scriptural terms as “mentally dead.”

The Arabs were ignorant, but they weren’t dead. They were in their own land, speaking their own language. All the people that had a prophet, they were in their land. God raised a messenger from among them that spoke their language, and dealt with their problems.

The messenger doesn’t have to be universal if he is called to deal with a specific sickness in a specific people. Black people are sick unto death, and we need somebody!

Master Fard Muhammad, with a White mother and a Black father, was able to come in and out of America for 20 years before He even made Himself known to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

He was among White people. He was in the colleges. He was here, and He was there. He was studying—studying your minds! The mind of the Black slave and the mind of the White slave master, because He had to deal with both minds! Both cultures!

Now this may shock some of you, but He wanted to help, eventually, both people.

The message that you call “Black Supremacy” fed a broken heart, a broken mind and a broken spirit. As a Caucasian person, sometimes you look at us, and you may not understand what we’ve been through that puts us in the condition that we are in, so you don’t know how to deal with us.

God said He would choose a foolish people to be His people. He would choose the things that are not, to bring to naught the things which are. And God said, “Thou shalt no more be the tail, thou shalt be the head.” Then the scripture teaches, “This is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our sight.”

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said that he heard the footsteps of Bilal (an Ethiopian Black man) going into paradise ahead of his own. How could a follower of a great one precede him into paradise? It doesn’t mean that Bilal is going to enter heaven before the Prophet.

I believe it means this: That whenever you say you are chosen, please don’t use such language unless you’re going to do what you’re chosen to do. Whenever God raises a people from ignominy to greatness, it is because He wants to use that people for a broader, bigger purpose.

To my Jewish and Christian family: There is a parable in the Bible that talks about your neglect of these pitiful people that were brought to America to be made slaves. It is the parable of The Good Samaritan.

A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and on the way he fell among thieves who robbed him of his raiment, hit him in the head and left him wounded in the road. A priest walked by on the other side, and when he saw the man wounded, he didn’t help him. Along came a Levite who came to where he was, looked at him, but did not help him out of that condition.

Then, along came The Good Samaritan, who saw the man wounded, poured oil in his wound, bound up his wound, took him to an inn keeper, gave the inn keeper some money and said, “If it is more than what I’ve given you, on my return I’ll pay you.” In this parable, Jesus was saying “Love your neighbor.”

The church walked by on the other side. You all really know how to help us, and I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about the transfer of knowledge.

The Levites: You saw him; you looked at him. The Levitical priesthood could help raise Black people up from that condition because you were once in it yourself.

Some of our Arab brothers own stores, and they are forbidden to eat the swine, but they will feed it to us. Some of our brothers are forbidden to take alcohol, but they have liquor in their store and they feed it to us.

Some of our brothers know that Allah (God) taught the Prophet to teach us the respect and protection of our women, but some see the terrible condition of our women and take advantage of them.

This is not good. If we are left in that condition to be exploited, then The Wrath of God will come down on the church, on the synagogue and the mosque.

We need to talk like this to one another—not with hatred; not with vitriol—but just to show you, “Look: You didn’t fail us. You failed God.” When God gives you wisdom and power, He gives you an assignment that goes along with that. If you walk by the man that needs your help, and you know how to help and you won’t give it to that man, then how will God feel about you?

This meeting today in Mosque Maryam is to celebrate The Oneness of God and The Oneness of Humanity; The Oneness of The Prophetic Community and The Oneness of Religion.

There is an African traditional proverb that says one going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to see how it hurts. If you took that and did that to yourself, would you do it to the bird?

In the Baha’i faith, the kernel of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh is: “Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself.” In Buddhism, the kernel of Buddha’s teachings is: “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”

In Confucianism, it is the word shu, which means reciprocity: “Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.” In Hinduism: “Do not to others which if done to thee would cause thee pain. This is the sum (or the total) of duty.”

In Jainism: “In happiness and suffering; in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self.” In Shintoism: “Be charitable to all beings for Love is the representative of God.”

In Sikhism, the kernel of the teachings is: “Don’t create enmity with anyone as God is within everyone.” In Taoism: “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your loss.” In Zoroastrianism: “Whatever you do not approve for yourself, do not approve for anyone else. When you have acted in this manner, you are righteous.”

I saved the Three Abrahamic Traditions for last. In Judaism, it says: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man.” In Christianity: “Do unto others as you would have them so do unto you.” And in Islam: “No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.”

The New Beginning of The Nation of Islam is that we evolve beyond just the service to our people.

I was with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad one day and he said to me: “Brother, they call me a Black Nationalist.” He said “Black is not national. Black is universal.” All the time that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was among us, he was feeding us, teaching us and guiding us.

There were Whites that came to his table. There were Asians that came to his table. There were great imams and scholars that came to his table. He never mistreated anyone. He gave them respect.

During his last sermon to us at Saviour’s Day in 1974, he had two White Muslims on the rostrum with him. One of them was Ali Baghdadi, and the other one was a Muslim from Turkey. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, “These men are not here to see if you are clothed in a long white dress or a long black dress.

They are here to see if you are clothed in the principles of your religion.” He also said that “Allah did not raise us (the Black man and woman in this hemisphere) to be mockers of anyone.”

Allah (God) is raising us, the Black Man and Woman in America, to be servants of the Human Family after the dross has been taken from us. Our Job and Our Mission is to help bring in a Government of Peace wherein we all can live together in peace.

But before we can accomplish that Mission, we have to grow out of the mind of Black Inferiority; and Whites have to grow out of the mind of White Superiority, for Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said, “There’s no superiority of the White over the Black, or the Black over the White. The one that is best among you is he or she who is most careful of his or her duty to Allah.”

Muhammad and Jesus are the two greatest of those who proselytize the Teachings. Jesus and his disciples have spread Christianity all over the world. Muhammad and his disciples have done the same.

Are Muhammad and Jesus enemies? No. Why, then, are we?

Is Muhammad and Jesus an enemy of Moses and the Israelite Prophets? No. Then why are we?

I think we all need to rise from this House, and all houses like it, to teach a Message that will inspire, motivate and stimulate human beings to act in the manner that God be reflected in us.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, “The best religion, Brother, is ‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, and love for your brother what you love for yourself.’” All the rest of the Teaching is based upon that principle.

When you go forth out of this House today, let us go forth determined to be better tomorrow than we are today. What will it take from us to be kind? What will it rob us of to be a better human being? If we start where we are, spread it from where we are, then perhaps in our lifetime we will begin, as we are beginning, to see change.

We see change going on in America. We see change going on in the heart of young Caucasians, and they are now instructing their parents. So older people who have the old way, be careful, because Moses had some old folks that didn’t want to change and God had given them a land wherein were some giants.

And God instructed Moses and Aaron, “Go ahead and take them into the land,” but the people said, “Not us. We’re not going up in there. You and your God, go get those giants out of that land and then we’ll go in!” And guess what God said? “Fine. I will let you wander in the wilderness until you die out, and I will take your children and they will inhabit The Promised Land.”

It is the young people today that every branch of faith should be going after because The Promise of God is not necessarily in the elders. The Promise of God will be found in the young.

Thank you, and may Allah (God) bless you. As-Salaam Alaikum (Peace Be Unto You).

The post A New Beginning -Part II appeared first on Final Call News.

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

As-Salaam Alaikum.

I thank Allah so much for that sound that we heard from the Shofar, the Ram’s Horn, that announces Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Shabbat (the Sabbath), calling the people of Israel to purification and preparation for atonement, for sin and wrongdoing, that we may keep Allah’s (God’s) favor to us.

We thank those who come by the sound of the bell to Christian worship, and we thank a Black man from Ethiopia named Bilal, who created from the Spirit of God that which is called the Adhan, or the “call to prayer” in Islam.

These three branches of pure monotheistic belief—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—spring from a father, Ibrahim, or Abraham, who was a man that fought against polytheism. In the Holy Qur’an, there is a story about the idol worshippers of his day and there were three of them.

One of them was larger than the others, and it is written that in the night, Abraham knocked down one of the idols, and the next morning the people asked, “Who did this?” Abraham said, “Ask the big one, he should be able to tell you.”

And, of course, they were upset with Abraham and they boiled him in oil. So we have to be careful how you take down the idols that people worship, but it is misplaced worship that has the human family at odds with each other.

While Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was among us, there was unity among the Jews. When Moses was among the people he was sent to, there was unity. But when Prophet Muhammad was gone, division came.

The Holy Qur’an says they did not become divided until after knowledge came to them splitting up their religion into sects and parties vying with one another due to envy.

This happened during the time of Jesus; it happened again during the time of Muhammad, peace be upon them, and it happens every time there is a charismatic person who guides people sometimes to a new truth.

But when that person dies, then that terrible human condition arises when people seek power and are greedy for power. And out of envy they war with one another over who will sit where and who will go there, and then the people of God become divided.

Allah (God) says in the Holy Qur’an that He sent messengers and prophets to every nation. He didn’t send messengers to every nation to preach a different religion. Otherwise, we could charge Him with being the author of confusion. While the scripture teaches that “God is not the God of confusion, but the God of peace,” then how did we become so confused?

When a messenger or prophet of God came in different parts of the world, they always brought a truth that was to correct the problems of that particular time. But those contemporary truths were founded on immutable principles that never change.

The prophets all over the earth taught the same basic truth. But when the prophet died, people began to name the message after the prophet, so now we have Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism, Zoroastrianism.

Some would call Islam “Muhammadanism.” Then we have Christianity and Judaism, but what is the real message or religion of Him Who created the heavens and the earth and gave every creature the True Religion?

And what is the True Religion? When you see the creatures, each creature follows a path that is indicative of the nature of that creature. God gives to each of His creatures a way.

What is the way that God gave to the human being? Did He change? Did He wait until 2,000 years ago to give man the way? Did God wait until 1,400 years ago to give man the way? No. From the time God created man, He gave him the right way. Allah (God) says in the Qur’an, “Set your face for religion being upright, the nature made by Allah in which He has created man.”

Look at our planet. Look at how we have become so divided, so hateful, yet claiming the same Creator. Do you think that Almighty God is happy with Christians, and Muslims and Jews claiming Abraham, the upright one, yet destroying each other everyday because we think we have the right way? Is that really the right way?

Allah (God) created Adam. All of the scriptures of the Torah, Injil (Gospel) and Qur’an talk about Adam. Did God give him the way? We call it “religion,” but that is man’s invention. We ask each other “What is your religion?

What is your religion? What is your religion?” No! We should be asking “What is the nature in which God created you?” That is the way. The real religion of God is this: “Obey My commands.” That is the right way, but most men know not.

Out of His love and respect for the human being, God says from the Bible, “I created man after My likeness and in My image.” That’s big—very, very, big. If God created you and I after His likeness, then it is no wonder when the Disciples asked Jesus, “Master, when were you hungry and I fed you not?

When were you naked and I clothed you not? When were you out of doors and I gave you not shelter? When were you sick and imprisoned and I ministered not unto you?” the response Jesus gave was this: “In as much as you have not done these things to the least of these my brethren, you have not done it also unto me.”

We love to give importance to big shots: “I met so-and-so; I saw so-and-so.” But when you walk down the street and you saw a homeless person on the corner asking for some help, you may not have known it—and he doesn’t know it—but he’s a “big shot,” too.

When you walk by the prostitute who doesn’t really know who she is; how valuable she is, you walk by a “big shot” that is in need of service. But we have been trained to look out for those that don’t really need us and to walk by the people most in need.

One day, a blind man was tapping his way up to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) when he was engrossed in a conversation with a well-placed man. The Prophet looked on the blind man because he disturbed the conversation, and the Prophet frowned, but the Qur’an says, Allah frowned.

Allah (God) said to the Prophet, “You are talking to a man who really in words is wasting your time and the man that is most in need of your service from him you turn away.”

May I humbly say religion, as it is being preached and practiced, is a failure. Not some religions—all of them. Don’t be displeased with me. We must judge the failure and success of religion by how effective we are in transforming human life.

Not judging religion by how happy the people are over our preaching, or the song that we sung or the prayer we said—and then the people go back out in that world to be the same as they were before they came to that house of worship.

When Jesus came on the scene, there were many preaching the law, but Jesus said, “Oh, ye hypocrites.” That’s a tough word. Who wants to be called such an ugly name? But Jesus said, “You have whited sepulchers, and in them are the bones of dead men.” 

The churches and the mosques and the synagogues—they’re white, meaning they’re white on the outside, but the people on the inside are like the bones of dead men and dead women. What does that mean?

Every religion has what is called rituals. Every religion has a way of devotion that may be peculiar to that faith tradition. In the prayer that Abraham and Ishmael made when they reconstructed or laid the foundation of Al-Ka’bah (the Holy House of Mecca), they asked Allah (God),

“Show us our way of devotion.” So there was a way of devotion peculiar to them. In every part of the world, the way of devotion that God gave those people is sometimes concretized in ritual.

The ritual itself is not the truth; the ritual is the embodiment of the truth. What will happen when we don’t need rituals anymore? When the truth of a ritual is made known, the ritual loses significance. We, as Muslims, must once in our lifetime make a pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mecca.

Some of us have been very blessed to make that journey, but when we make that journey, we all should know that everything that we do is a sign of something bigger. When we walk around Al-Ka’bah seven times; when we kiss the Black Stone; when we run between the hills, these ritualistic acts are signs of something bigger.

What is this new beginning for the Nation of Islam? I know you are concerned, and that you are curious.

In the Qur’an it says, “I created you from a tiny life germ, and then you became a clot, and then you became an embryo, and then you became a fetus, and then I brought you forth from your mother’s womb, complete yet incomplete.”

All along that journey, we as human beings are evolving, going to stage after stage on our journey to become complete human beings. When you mature to be a grown-up man or woman, are you yet complete, or do you yet have a distance to go to complete your real journey, which is the journey of life itself?

What is that journey? The Qur’an keeps telling us about those who deny the meeting with God. Our journey is from a tiny life germ to become one with our Creator. This is why the man Jesus in the Bible is so great a human because in his journey, though he lived a short time, he accomplished something that some of us can live 100 years and never accomplish.

He accomplished Oneness with God. So when the disciples and he were together, they said “When will we see the Father?” And he said, “Have I been among you all this long and you have not seen Him?” He said, “When you see me you see the Father, for I am in the Father and the Father is in me.

Me and my Father are one.” It is the same with Prophet Muhammad. He was, according to the history, the most obedient to the Will of God. That’s how you attain Oneness with God. God cannot give you the Secret of Nature unless you please Him to that degree that He can open up the Secret of Nature for us.

There are many preachers, teachers, sheikhs, mullahs, scholars. We read our Bible, we read our Qur’an, and we call ourselves “interpreters.” But no one can interpret the Word of God properly if our hearts are not in tune with Him and His Will.

Something has happened in America. We have churches, we have mosques, we have synagogues, but the streets are filled with crime, violence and the abuse of women and children—right outside the church; right outside the mosque. If our religion is only for the walls, and the people within them, then we have failed.

I say this because we have spent money to make a beautiful building, but that is not what God is interested in. If we don’t make beautiful people to come in and out of that building doing the Will and the Work of God, then all of this means nothing.

To those who are here from different religions and different races: Black people are in a very, very bad condition. I don’t care how many cars we drive or homes we have or money we have, the condition of Black people is really an indictment against the religious leadership because, if we really are in tune with the prophets and their writings, the religion should never lose its power to transform.

In the Book of Isaiah, the scripture teaches, “There will be a new heaven and a new earth, and the former things will pass away.” In the Book of Revelations, a man is talking—a man! He says, “Behold, I make all things new.” 

Now, that’s a heck of a statement: “Behold, I”—a personal pronoun—“make”—not some things—“all things new.” Then He says there will be a new heaven and a new earth and the former things will pass away. Well, we’re lined up then to see big change. Big, big, big change.

If you notice, change is the theme in race for the presidency. Change. And that theme, regardless who says it, is resonating with the people, because deep down in the hearts of the people, they are totally, thoroughly dissatisfied with government and they are seeking real change.

But, the change that will feed our hearts is not necessarily a political change. The change that will feed our souls is that which is on the scene, or coming on the scene today: It is a Universal Change.

Question: Where do we fit? If He is going to make all things new, does that mean Judaism will be made new? Christianity will be made new? Islam will be made new? We will be made new? What does it mean by “all things”? That’s everything! So God is dissatisfied with everything!

Will there be new government? New constitution? Will there be new people in power? Will that be you? Will that be me? Will that be him? Will that be her? We don’t know. But we know this: Change is absolutely necessary.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said the scripture is speaking of both a spiritual and physical change. He said that the change that it is talking about is a change in the spiritual rulership and a change in the political rulership.

Now let me say this for the record: The Founding Fathers of this country wanted separation of church and state, but not disconnect of the church from the state, or the state from the church.

Do you realize that all throughout these books—Bible and Qur’an—God respected kings, but He sent to these kings, prophets. And the prophets always said to the kings: “Thus sayeth the Lord.”

Today, however, the prophets are bought by the kings because they are seeking favor from the kings. You are not seeking the Favor of God. You’re seeking the favor of man, so you lose the Favor of God.

What happens when there is a disconnect between heaven and earth? If the sun does not draw water up from the earth’s surface into the earth’s rotation, which is called gravitation, forming what is called a cloud?

And if the wind does not drive that cloud over an earth that is dead, and rain down on that earth so that the seeds in the earth may swell, germinate and come up that we may eat and feed from the earth?

There is a connection between what is above and what is beneath, but we don’t have that connection anymore. That is why the human being is suffering and is a caricature of what God intended human beings to be.

We are no longer man in the Image of God—we are a caricature of what God intended because we are all filled with rebellion. And whatever Allah (God) said, “Thou shall not do,” government says “It’s okay. It’s all right. Help yourself.” There is great confusion.

To be continued.

The post A New Beginning appeared first on Final Call News.

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

Our subject today deals with three words which represent essentials that would allow us to live life successfully, the way God intended for human beings to live: Fear. Faith. Truth. These three words, if understood and acted upon properly, will give us a key to mastering every situation that life could pose. I want each of us to think about something in life that is troublesome to us. I want us to think about something in our own life that we need to overcome. I want us to think about something in our life that we desire, but as yet have not been able to attain it. Mastery of the principles underlying each of these three words will not only give you The Solution to that particular problem that you and I personally may have, but it gives you The Key to any problem you will ever face at any time in your life.

Fear: The Source of our insecurities

Is “fear” natural? If fear is a natural thing, then is it something that we must overcome? And if so, how? According to the dictionary, “fear” is a distressing emotion aroused by impending pain, danger, evil, whether that pain, danger or evil is real, or imagined. If you become afraid even of some imaginary thing that has not yet happened, the distressing emotion will still be present. “Fear” is the feeling, or the condition of being afraid. Fear restricts: Whatever we are afraid of, that which we fear makes us insecure; and whatever makes us afraid and insecure could cause us to bow. When we are afraid, fear causes us not to think properly. Fear causes us not to act properly. Fear makes you so insecure that you have a tendency to acquiesce, to submit, to surrender to the thing that you’re afraid of. And if you acquiesce, submit and surrender to what you are afraid of, then it becomes a god to you beside God! If God made man and woman in His Own Likeness, then can you imagine God being afraid? I mean, just think about God being afraid of a lion, or a bear! How could He be afraid of what He created? So if He is The Creator, and this is the creature, then He has Natural Mastery over it if He does not allow what He created to terrify Him. This is no “Frankenstein,” that the thing which is created can, now, terrify its creator. There is nothing in Creation that can make God afraid! Well, then if God is not afraid of anything that He created, and you and I are in His Image and in His Likeness, will you tell me please how we can justify being afraid of anything in Creation?

***

There is another kind of fear that has reverence to it, and that is the fear of God. Once when I was out in Arizona taking a month to fast and pray and discipline myself for a fight against cancer, I was listening to a tape by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He was saying that God did not make The Original Man, Black man, to be afraid of anything in His Creation. He only made you, and me, to fear Him. And it is The Fear of God, and God alone, that gives you Mastery over The Creation. But if you don’t know God, and won’t trust God and have faith in God, then things that make you afraid will become your master. God is worthy to be afraid of. You just have to believe and know that a God exists. The Bible teaches in Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” So if the fear of God makes you a beginner, then what is wisdom? “Wisdom” is that which allows you mastery, and you cannot begin to become wise in life if you don’t learn the fear of God. And once you learn the fear of God, then nothing in creation becomes able to terrify you. Then you are in the Beginner’s Class of Mastery.

I want you to internalize this: Anytime we allow anything to make us afraid, and we refuse to challenge our fear of that thing, then we can never be that man, or that woman, that God intended us to be. Fear will not allow you to be yourself!

It is not that you won’t ever be made afraid, because there are some terrifying things in this world. But when you are afraid, that’s the Test of Faith! This is when you have to call on what you’ve got faith in! What am I saying to you? You’re going to be made afraid.

I don’t want you thinking that every time you’re made afraid that you will come out “all right,” because the other part of this is: Being “fearless” is not going to get you victory in every circumstance. This is where faith comes in.

Faith: Making the impossible, possible

“Faith” is confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. Study the prophets’ life examples: How they challenged Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, and great armies (phalanx)—that’s beautiful, you know, when you read it in the Bible. But when you read it in the Bible, if it doesn’t give you courage in your time period, then reading it yesterday you might think that it can’t happen today! But God is able in every generation; and He will never let you down. He will never let you down if you put your trust in Him!

Now, some of us might have faith in our own strength; you have a lot of “macho” strength: “I go to the gym every day, I work out; I built my muscles, and so, nothing makes me afraid. I’ll rely on my strength.” But there are some things you can’t challenge with your strength. There are some things that only can be challenged with The Strength of God.

I’m saying this to all of us, and I’m sure you know it: The government of the United States cannot be challenged with your strength and mine. It can only be challenged with The Strength of God. There are forces in this world that you cannot challenge with your strength, and that’s why faith is absolutely necessary to overcome fear.

***

Dear beloved followers and believers of God: Without faith, you cannot achieve the impossible. But with faith there is nothing impossible. A lot of things are impossible without Him, but there is nothing impossible with Him! When you don’t have faith, real faith in God, you don’t even attempt things that people say are impossible. But when you have faith in God, you will try the impossible and find that it’s quite possible! So, “faith in God” is a Key to accomplishing anything in life that you desire.

Just as a baby on its mother’s breast for the first time does not know that milk is there, but will keep on pulling until some milk appears, that’s “faith.” Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen.

Look at this Universe, and think of anything you want: Everything that you need to make life beneficial to you is already here! You don’t have to “create” anything. But the question is: How strong is your pull on the mammary gland called “The Universe,” because The Universe is a giant breast! I’m not being vulgar, but that’s exactly what it is! The baby can pull on the breast believing, hoping, something is going to be there, and that hope and that belief is rewarded because milk comes! And it won’t dry up as long as somebody’s pulling … Then we must do the same: You have to learn how to pull on this Universe to get the things out of life that The God Who created this, and you, promised.

What do you want? “Well, I want to pay my bills.” It’s done! But is that all you want? Oh, that’s “punk stuff”—you haven’t even begun to pick up on the heavy stuff if you can’t get by the “little stuff.” And the “little stuff” that is messing your head up is denied to you because you don’t have faith!

In Matthew 17:20, 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! Have you ever seen how small a “mustard seed” is? It is so tiny! Well, what kind of “mountain” do you have in your life that is troubling you, and you can’t move? “Well, I’ve got a lot of problems …”—Tell me something new! That’s what life is! “Life” is “problems”: If you don’t have a problem, you’re not alive! So where are you? When God brought you here He brought you here to give you a problem! And the solution to your problem is also here! But if you lack faith, you’ll walk around like a dog chasing your tail, you will never quite make it in life because you are a faithless individual!

That’s your problem: You’re afraid, and you don’t have faith, so you have to live by schemes; you always have to try and “trick” somebody! When they’re not looking, you take their wallet; you learn craft in stealing! You learn how to lie to manipulate silly people in order to take from them, while there is a Universe out here ready to give you its treasure. …

Brothers and sisters: Your real power is in trying to be right. Our people will love you if you are right, and are trying to be right! Because no matter how bad you are in your actions, you really are The Righteous. You don’t have to be afraid to be right. You should be terrified of being wrong.

Truth: The Right Foundation that sustains life

I want you to think about “Truth.” Allah says in the Qur’an that He created the heavens and the earth with truth. You are a creation of Truth. If God built all of this and sustains it with Truth, how can you sustain your life living a lie?

Brothers and sisters, when we want to look beautiful, we spend time in the mirror; we make sure our hair looks right, we smell right, we dress right, and then we come out to meet the people. You are so concerned about how you appear, but appearance is not what you are! The real you is on the inside of what you appear to be.

Now, the thing that I see going on, no matter your religion, is that some of us can learn the Wisdom, and we can articulate the Wisdom, but I don’t care how much we know: To sustain the Knowledge that you have requires you to have The Right Foundation. And the Right Foundation for the Sustenance of Life and Knowledge starts with Truth.

All of us lie too much. If I tell you a lie, I’m robbing you of the truth! And if you believe my lie, and act on a lie, then I’m murdering the spirit! So a liar is a thief, and a murderer! And no liar, no thief, no murderer can find a way in The Kingdom of God! It looks like our mouths are bent in a lie. … I have found that we’ve got a lot of people that can speak well, but they don’t have any “character.” So if you’re the type of person that is “knocked out” by good words, you’ll always be knocked out because there’s people that can give you good words all day long! But do they have character? Do they have integrity? A liar can have neither.

***

“Seek ye first The Kingdom of God …” “The Kingdom of God” is built on Truth. But we just lie, and lie and lie, and there’s no reason for it!

Who is anybody that you should lie to them? Who is there to lie to if God, already The All-Seeing, The All-Knowing, knows the truth? So whether you want good character or not, that’s on you! I mean, if there was something that I failed to do, and you asked me, “Did you do it?” I would have to tell you, “No, brother. I’m sorry.” You may be disappointed in me, but it is better that you be disappointed in me, than me be disappointed in myself for lying!

If you lie, it starts eating at The Foundation of Character, because all character is built on truth, honesty and integrity. This is what too few of us have. Every time you lie, it’s like taking a sledgehammer, knocking The Foundation out from under your Good. Every lie breaks you down. Every truth builds you up.

Why do you lie? “Because I’m insecure; I am afraid of consequences, and therefore I lack faith in God.” So you see, all three of those words, fear, faith and truth, are related.

So I’m challenging us today: Stop Telling Lies! Stop Living Lies! When you would tell a lie, just think for a moment, and try forcing yourself to speak the truth. Every time you speak the truth, you get stronger in the truth! But every time you lie, and you know you’re lying, you just weaken yourself, because The Truth supports the Universe! A lie supports nothing.

And don’t exaggerate, because the moment you add to the truth, you take away from the truth, turning it into a lie.

Every time you lie, you undercut your ability to be what only Truth can make you into.

***

I hope and I pray that God will make us fearless. Can God make you fearless? He said, “Those who believe and are the doers of good to others, there is no fear for them nor shall they grieve.” And I heard Elijah Muhammad say, “They could bring 10,000 outside my door. I will not be afraid.” Why won’t you be afraid, Elijah? “Because God is with me, and as long as God is with me, there is no army that can defeat me.”

You have to know that God is with you, and He will prove to you that He is with you! If you are with Him and with Truth, God will take little things, and begin building your confidence in Him. And after awhile, He’ll keep on building your confidence until you just become so trusting in Him, that you don’t think anything or anyone can harm you except it pleases God, because The Arm of The Lord has been revealed to you.

And brothers, sisters, I can tell you: It is a wonderful feeling to be able to know that you can put your trust in God.

The post Fear, Faith and Truth appeared first on Final Call News.

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

Greetings to you. I am Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, that Great Preacher of Freedom, Justice and Equality to the Aboriginal People of the Earth: The Black People of North America, and the Dark People of the world. He is also a Warner to the government and people of the United States of America, and the nations of the Earth.

Elijah Muhammad: The Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam. I am so thankful to Almighty God Allah for the day that I met the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

A child born with an enduring love for a downtrodden people

As a young man, I always desired to see Black people free. I cried myself to sleep many nights, especially after coming from church and my Sunday school class, where I would ask my Sunday school teacher: “If God gave Moses to The Children of Israel to deliver them from the hard bondage of Pharaoh, and if God always stood on the side of the ‘enslaved’ and the ‘oppressed,’ why hasn’t God sent someone to us?” My pastors and my Sunday school teachers had no answer for me.

I was upset, because I was a Christian and I loved Jesus Christ; but when I was a young man, White Christians were doing horrible things to Black Christians, and no intercession was taken on our behalf. I always felt the pain of those that I would read about in The Crisis Magazine, or, in The Afro-American or The Pittsburgh Courier, when we would read of the “lynchings” and the “burnings” and the “castrations” and the terrible torture of Black people when White people felt that we had done something “improper.” And so my heart ached to see our people free; so, I started to look for somebody who would address the concerns of our people.

When I was 11 years of age, I was sent by my mother to New York to spend part of the summer with my uncle; and my uncle had on his wall a picture of a Black man! In my house, in Boston, we had pictures on our mantelpiece, one of whom was Queen Elizabeth and King George, and the other was a White representation of “Jesus.” But in my uncle’s home, a Black man was on the wall. That was really “strange” to me, because all the homes that I had visited as a young man, all the Black homes had a picture of “Jesus,” a White person.

I remember once a Filipino man came to our door; he was selling Bibles. And as he was opening the Bibles, showing my mother all of these “White” prophets and angels, when he got to “The Last Supper” my mother asked him: “You mean to tell me there’s no Black people at all in this book?”–and she ran him out of the house. So after I had talked to my uncle who told me my dad was a follower of Marcus Garvey, and my mother was on the fringe of The Garvey Movement, that was, for me, a sign that my mother was very “Black conscious.” And, I thank God for that because she instilled in me love for our people.

When I asked my uncle, “Who is that man on the wall?” he said, “He’s a man that came to unite Black people.” That fascinated me! I was a “little shorty” at that time, so I asked my uncle to get a chair so I could stand on that chair and “drink in” the features of this Black man who had come to unite Black people. And as I was looking in his face, studying his features, I asked my uncle, “Where is he, that I might go and be with him?” and my uncle said, “He’s passed away”–and the tears fell from my eyes, because I had come “that close” to what my heart was yearning for, and he was gone.

My search always was for a man that would stand up for us.

The man ‘accepting his own and being himself’ under guidance from a Wise Teacher

When I was 19 years of age, already a musician, an entertainer, and a young boy going to school because I was in college at the time, I had come home for summer vacation; and, one of my friends told me that “God had chosen a messenger for us.” As I walked the street, tears fell from my eyes, and I asked God: “God, why didn’t you choose me? You know I love my people…” And as fast as I made that question to God, the answer came when the brother had told me that “God appeared in 1930”–and I was not even born. So I decided I must go and meet this man, and offer him my life.

My friends had visited the mosque and heard The Teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, but they were not adequate to defend it, because I had questions to ask that they couldn’t answer. So, at 19 years of age, I did not meet Elijah Muhammad.

***

At the age of 20 I married my wife Khadijah, and was in college; and then in 1955, when I was 22 years of age, I was playing as the featured performer in a nightclub in Chicago called The Blue Angel that was on 801 N. Rush Street owned by a great Greek wrestler by the name of Gene Fadouli. One day while my wife and I were in a cab driving down a street, I happened to look and see my old friend that grew up together with me. So we stopped the cab, paid the cab driver, jumped out of the cab and hailed my friend. And naturally, since he’s in Chicago, I’m in Chicago, and I’m the “headliner” at The Blue Angel nightclub, I said to my friend, “Man, why don’t you come on and catch my show?” He wasn’t “moved” a bit. Then he said, “Your uncle is right around the corner…” (This was when the Honorable Elijah Muhammad had a little grocery store on Wentworth in Chicago), and I went around the corner and saw my uncle, and saw some of my friends from Boston who had become Muslims.

So they asked me would I like to come and hear the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and I said, “Of course!” And so, I was staying at The Wilmington Arms located at 49th & Drexel Avenue, and my friends came and picked me up, and brought me to Muhammad’s Temple No. 2 at 5335 S. Greenwood Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. There was a tall, beautiful man opening up for Elijah Muhammad, who had not yet come, and that man was the great Dean of Ministers, Brother Minister Lucius Bey who, this coming May, God Willing, will be 100 years of age. And after a few minutes, I heard somebody from the back of the auditorium say: “Tench-HUT! The Messenger of Allah!”–and I heard fast footsteps coming down the aisle, and almost with a bound, Elijah Muhammad jumped up on the rostrum. He had me sitting where usually “first-timers” don’t sit; first-timers always get the “best seats in the house”: front row, second row, third row. But he had me sitting in the balcony.

Then Elijah Muhammad began to speak … and you know, being a student of English, and always getting pretty good grades in English, as he spoke I noticed that he was splitting some verbs; that “verb and subject agreement” were not there. And in my mind I said to myself: “Mmm! This man can’t speak!” and he looked up at the balcony where I was, and he said: “Brother, I did not have a chance to get that mighty-fine education that you got. When I got to the school door it was closing” ­–he meant that he was a “sharecropper,” and when it was time to pick cotton or do the things that were needed, there was no school for Black people.

Then he said: “Brother, don’t you pay any attention to how I’m sayin’ it–you pay attention to what I’m sayin’, and then you take it and put it in that fine language that you know!”

When he laid eyes on me for the first time, he gave me My Assignment.

The Decision the man had to make: Denying himself to do God’s Work

I was living in New York at the time in 1955, so when I got back to New York, I went to the Temple No. 7 and heard Malcolm X. Well, “that was it”: I had never heard a Black man speak like that! And by this time it was the summer, and since I had not heard back about my Letter I wrote in February in Chicago, I took my form out and wrote my Letter again, and it was accepted around the first week of October of that year.

Being a musician and wanting to go back to Boston and deliver that Message: I never knew that I had the “gift of speech.” However, on a Wednesday evening Brother Malcolm asked for the new converts to come and have a word to say, and when he called “Louis X” up, he said: “I’d like you to speak on what Islam has done for you.” Well, “Islam” had done a lot for me, so I just began to speak about this Great Teaching of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and the Great Word that I heard from Brother Malcolm; and the mosque, or temple, erupted with applause. And the next thing I knew, Brother Malcolm put me in the Ministry Class, and my journey in The Ministry began.

But I was not in the mosque 30 days when a “decree” had come down from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad: I was working in Greenwich Village in New York in a place called The Village Bon, so I wasn’t at the lecture that day; so as soon as I got a break, I came up to the little Muslim restaurant, “The Temple No. 7 Luncheonette,” to have bowl of that wonderful bean soup. And as I was sitting there, indulging in that beautiful bean soup with whole wheat bread, a brother came over to me and said, “Man! You missed it today! Malcolm read a letter from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and in that letter he said all that are in ‘show business,’ all that are in ‘music’: They would have to get out of music, or get out of the temple.”

I don’t remember whether I finished my bowl of soup. I got up and walked out of the restaurant to think … I think I may have walked 30 paces, and I said: “I can live without music, but I cannot live without The Truth.” And Brother Captain Yusef Shah ran up to me, wondering whether I had been “ill-affected” by that command from Elijah Muhammad, and I told him I had made up my mind.

***

“Now, why are you saying this Farrakhan?” Well, I wanted to give you some “background” on “The Time and What Must Be Done.”

You know, in that letter that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wrote, he gave “30 days to get out of show business.” And on the last day of the 30 days, I had an engagement at the Nevele Country Club in upstate New York; and I said, “Well, I’m going get it all out of my system.” I went up in that country club and I sang ballads, I sang calypsos; I danced, I told jokes; I played jazz violin and I played classical violin. And, I was finished. After I got it all out, I went down in my dressing room, and a man by the name of “Purcell” came in my dressing room, who said: “You are extremely talented. Do you have a manager?” I said, “No sir.” He told me: “I manage Pearl Bailey and Billy Daniels”–two of the greatest performers of their day; and he said: “If you will let me manage your career, I will start you off $500 a week, and you will be playing in all of the supper clubs that take Billy Daniels and Pearl Bailey.”

You say, “Farrakhan, come on, now! I thought you were teaching ‘Islam’?” I am. Here is how: That man offered me more money, three or four times what I was making. At that time, in 1954 and 1955, $150 a week was “big money,” but to offer me $500 playing in supper clubs across the country? That was a great offer! But I didn’t tell him I wasn’t going take it; I just said, “Yes…” And he said, “Well, when you come in the city, if you meet me tomorrow I’ll have our lawyer there, and we’ll sign a contract.”

I smiled and took the address of where we would meet, and I went back to my little apartment in Jamaica, Queens (New York). And that night I laid down in my bed, and Allah (God) gave me a Vision of “Two Doors”: One of doors had a sign over it saying “SUCCESS”–and I could look in that Door, and I saw a mound of diamonds and gold.

And right next to it was another door that had a “Black Veil” coming from the top of the door to the bottom; and over that Door was “ISLAM.”

And I was told to “Choose,” and I chose The Door of “ISLAM” not knowing where that Door would lead me; but if I stayed in show business, I was guaranteed to have a mound of gold and diamonds. I chose “The Unknown”–but what I did know was what I heard from Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X of The Truth was what I was “looking for” all my life! Mr. Purcell never saw me… I chose to “give up the world” to learn a Truth that would free The Minds of Black People.

It is written in the scriptures of the Bible that Jesus said, “If any man would be my disciple, he must first deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me.” I did the first thing: I denied myself. But I did not know “the cross” that I, as a Muslim, would bear at that time when Elijah Muhammad and The Nation of Islam had not yet come to national and international public attention.

The man recognized as David, anointed by God to be King over the house of Israel

I soon went to Boston and became a captain of the F.O.I., and my minister at that time allowed me to teach when he wasn’t there. And every time I taught, everyone that the Believers brought would accept The Teachings; the little mosque filled so fast till we had to put the F.O.I. on the outside. And when Saviour’s Day came around again, I went to Chicago as a “captain.” The Honorable Elijah Muhammad had his Saviour’s Day at a Baptist Church on Indiana Avenue, and he came out this day that “the captains” were speaking. When I got up to speak, Elijah Muhammad was sitting behind me; and later, they showed me a picture of him sitting behind me with a big smile on his face.

He invited me to come to the house for dinner, and I was excited! His home was at 4847 S. Woodlawn Avenue, and when I got there, his son Emmanuel Muhammad welcomed me and said, “Your ‘minister-captain’ has arrived!” And when I went in and had dinner with this man that was now “the father” of my life, spiritually: I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.

If you think that “love at first sight” is not real, it is, because with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, I met “the man” that my soul had longed for all the days of my life.

At the end of that dinner, he did something I never saw him do again: He got up from his table, and started, at his left, shaking hands with everyone at that table. I was at near the end on his right side, and when he came and shook my hand, he pulled me close to him and whispered in my ear: “You remind me of David.” I didn’t know what he meant, but he knew! He knew that that young man, that musician that gave up all that he had, was going to be “the one” who, when he had left us, would sit in his seat, under his guidance, and continue his work. “David,” as the scripture teaches in the Book of Acts, Chapter 13, verse 22, was a man “after The Heart of God”: He had a heart like unto God’s! He loved the things that God loved! He disliked the things that God disliked! He was courageous! He was a warrior! He was a “ruddy-complexioned” young man…

In the Book of 1 Samuel, Chapter 16, when the Prophet Samuel was told to “Go to the house of Jesse,” the scripture teaches that when Jesse brings one of his sons to Samuel, The Spirit of God will alight on that son–and Samuel will know that that is the one, and will “anoint” him, for he will be a King over Israel. Well, the man had seven sons, and he walked them all in front of the Prophet Samuel, and The Spirit did not descend on the Prophet. So he asked Jesse: “Do you have another son?” and Jesse said, “Oh! Yes, yes, yes! I have a son; he’s out in the field tending the sheep.” Samuel said, “Bring him,” and when David walked in that room, The Spirit of God descended on Samuel, as God says in verse 12,: “…Arise, anoint him: for this is he”–and Samuel knew that this one, David, would be The Anointed One to stand for The Children of Israel.

‘Verb & Subject Agreement’: The Past Mentality conflicting with The Present Need of Action

Why am I saying all of these things to you? I say this to you because “The Time and What Must Be Done” is a powerful message! You can’t deliver this Message, “afraid” of the consequences of such a Message! Elijah Muhammad, my Teacher and my Spiritual Father: He never shrunk from delivering that Message that Master Fard Muhammad gave him, no matter who disagreed with that Message! In the end of his time among us, during The Theology of Time Lecture Series, he said of himself: “I am the ‘Jesus’ of the Bible, and the ‘Muhammad’ of the Holy Qur’an.”

Well, I don’t preach a “dead” Elijah. I preach a living Elijah! I did not know that all the years that I was privileged to be at his table, he was “planting seeds” in my head, in my heart… Even though I didn’t know what those words meant, at the proper time those words would come to fruition. If you want to know how Elijah Muhammad “tried” his student, go get the book Closing The Gap, with Jabril Muhammad questioning Louis Farrakhan! And I only gave the trials that he put me through for “20 years”–not the trials that I have been under since I have been on this post, my father absent from me.

That Message that Elijah Muhammad gave me: For 10 years I was his “National Representative.” Not “spokesman,” but representative, because a “representative” is different from a “spokesman.” A spokesman could speak the word, but not necessarily represent in ways of character, in morals, in courage, in fearlessness the man that he is “the representative of.” He put me on the radio for six years, broadcasting in his name; and he told me: “Brother, God has gone in front of you, and made friends for you all the way around the Earth.” I didn’t know what he meant! But in my trip through The Caribbean last year, everywhere I went I met prime ministers, finance ministers, I met ministers that were over defense, and all of them knew “Farrakhan.” Most of them were educated in America, and they grew up on “Farrakhan representing the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.”

***

Why did I spend such time sharing some of the stories of my life as a young child, growing into a man who accepted The Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad? It is because I was put in “The Valley of Decision” with that letter that Elijah Muhammad sent to me, and it is in that “Valley of Decision” where we, Black people, are now if we know “The Time” and “What Must Be Done.”

Remember what I said about “verb and subject agreement”? Elijah Muhammad taught me The Best “English Lesson” that I could learn about “verb and subject agreement” when he told me: “Brother, we are in ‘The Present’–our actions must not belong to ‘The Past’. We are free, so we should act like ‘free men.’ Get out of a ‘slave mentality,’ looking for others to do for us what we could unite and do for ourselves.”

Brothers and Sisters, “The Time” is the end of our servitude to White America. Please understand that you are no longer to be their servitude slave! We must come out of their names: “Johnson,” “Jones,” “Smith,” “O’Reilly,” “Culpepper,” “Woodpecker”; “Mr. Green,” “Mr. Black,” “Mr. White,” “Mr. Brown”–these are their names! They are “creatures of” a creature while you are creatures of The Creator; so, you should wear a Name of God Himself for you are a Direct Descendant of God, The Aboriginal People of the Earth! You don’t look like a “free man”… All the great works that you do, you do it in their names; you’ve been baptized in their way of “civilization.” No wonder Master Fard Muhammad said that we were “savages.” A savage is a person that has lost the Knowledge of Self, and is living a beast life.

Brothers and Sisters, when you get to know “The Time” then you must make a Decision: “I want to make a free step!” If you don’t, “Surely,” The Qur’an says, “man is in loss”–by the time! Since the beginning of this lecture series I talked about the “loss” that will be suffered by both “White America” and “Black America.” But I want to specifically talk to Black people about how you are “losing”: You know you are a “loser” because even though you have a “Black president,” you are not “satisfied” because he was not there to fulfill a “Black Agenda” in the first term; and now that he has been re-elected, in a second term. That is not what the “CEO” of a corporate giant, “The United States of America,” has to do! That “CEO” has to work for the stockholders, “citizens”.

The question is: Are you a real “citizen” of America? Or, are we “lawful captives” wearing their names? They made us “citizens” by the 14th Amendment–and took it away in the 13th Amendment! “What do you mean by that, Farrakhan?” In the 14th Amendment we were allowed to be a “citizen,” but it is stated in the 13th Amendment that if the slave returned to any “illegal behavior,” he could lose that status as a “free man” and as a “citizen.” Wow… So look at how many Black people are in prison right now as “felons”!

And even though our Black population is growing, and our Brown brother’s population is growing; and the demographers are saying that by the year 2046, America will be a “Brown Nation”–every man with a “vote”–well, do you think that the racist element in White America wants to see that reality when “every vote will count,” and their population is diminishing while ours is increasing? That means with “one vote” you could be governor, with “one vote” in the hands of Black and Brown, you could be senators! In “one vote” you could be ruling America! Well how does that “sit” with a racist mind? It doesn’t sit well… So “birth control” must be practiced among the Native people, the “Indians”; among the Blacks, among the Mexicans. This “birth control” is a Death Plan for us.

God is contending with America over the   Black man and woman’s complete liberation

“What Must Be Done?” We must separate from our Open Enemy, and begin the thought in our mind that “We are free people! Let’s take a ‘free step,’ and build a Nation of our own.” This is what God Promised! God doesn’t “Promise” The Children of Israel “a land of their own”–and fails to get it for them! He Promises, and He Fulfills His Promise!

Some of us are asking the government of the United States of America for “reparations.” They don’t even want to consider it! Well, America, you will have to consider it, because the scriptures that I quoted to you in Part 4 of this Lecture Series from Book of Isaiah, Chapter 49, verses 24-26: “Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?…”–Absolutely! God is contending with you now for The Complete Liberation of His People!

Now, of course, when Abraham Lincoln was in the “Lincoln-Douglass Debate,” he sent for some “Negroes” who were “educated,” to come to the White House; and they didn’t want to leave “massa,” they wanted to stay in America. And believe me, some of you are like that too! But I will say this: I want to have the chance, unhindered, to teach “The Time and What Must Be Done” to every Black man, woman and child in America. And after we teach that Subject, then we should take a “vote” as to 1) “How many of us want to stay with our Open Enemy?” or, 2) “How many of us want to be separated from them in a land of our own?”

“The Promise of God” is a land flowing with “milk and honey”. Well, “milk” means you have animal husbandry; and “honey” means you have bees that are “pollinating flowers,” you have “vegetation”–you have land that is fertile, land that is productive.

“What Must Be Done”: America, you don’t have anything for us to do. And your plan for us is genocidal. You are hoping for a “Race War,” you are hoping that the guns that you have amassed can be used to slaughter Black people!

Well, let me say in a “heartbeat”: We, in the Nation of Islam, do not carry “weapons,” because we want to show you, and the world, that we are a People of Peace. So as Muslim followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, you can’t find guns in our homes; we are “civilized people” in that we settle our disagreements with Truth! In fact, we are forbidden even to argue with one another, for The Truth settles all arguments. So “the winner” in our homes when there is a “dispute” is determined by seeking: “Where is The Truth? Where does it lie within the dispute?”–and it takes a rational mind, not people guided by “emotion,” to find The Truth and act on the principles of The Truth!

And since I have been on this Post, by The Grace of God, we have never picked up arms to harm one another, or to harm anyone else. And even though they say, “Farrakhan is an anti-Semite,” yet, you cannot find one Jewish person that anyone who follows me has ever harmed! Nor can you find us in a vengeful spirit against White people. Naturally, we will fight with those who fight with us, but we are commanded never to be “the aggressor.”

“What Must Be Done”: What is essential to Life is that we must be properly educated now. Our colleges and university must educate the Black man and woman for self-independence! We need all branches of Engineering! We need Medicine! We need Law! We need “Science”; we need Biology, we need Chemistry! We need all of The Sciences that will help us to build an independent existence!

Did you know that in Cuba, Comandante Fidél Castro had offered us a thousand scholarships for Black and Brown and poor White to come to Cuba in their medical program; and in six years we would come out “doctors,” ready to pass any exam in America to be qualified to practice medicine? And the only thing he required was that we practice that medicine in the communities out of which we came. That’s a great offer, when you consider that Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois last year had 30,000 applications to the Medical School, but only 3,000 students could be chosen–27,000 students had to go somewhere else. Where did they go? Why is that we don’t have enough “doctors”? Don’t be “afraid” to go to Cuba, by thinking: “Well, they’re Communists!” In upcoming broadcasts I’m going to talk to you about this “blockade on Cuba” and what America must do to win back her favor with the nations of the Earth.”

***

So I want you all to think about “What Must Be Done.”

To Black people: We must pool our resources. On February 24, 2013, at our annual Saviours’ Day Convention, the subject is: “The Economic Blueprint of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad to Fight Against Poverty and Want.” You need to know what we must do to prepare a “future” for ourselves! Whether it’s here or elsewhere, we have to “get busy” and get up from a “begging” position! And if you doubt and fear this, thinking, “We can’t leave White America! I mean, that’s not ‘intelligent.’ Where would we go?” Well, we will talk about that in one of our next broadcasts.

To the government and people of the United States of America: If you say “separation is not the answer,” then I say to you: Separation of us from you is The Only Answer. And you will soon come to know it.

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