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Time for women to take divine place as mothers of new civilization
Minister Farrakhan's special message wrapped up three days of spiritual and physical renewal for young women of the Nation of Islam as Muslim women and girls from all across the United States and as far away as Montreal, Canada attended the three-day 2011 National Vanguard Retreat at the beautiful Indian Lakes Resort in Bloomingdale, Illinois and included a meeting and visit at the Minister's farm in Michigan.
Uniformed sisters of the MGT & GCC Vanguard—a specialized unit composed of Muslim females age 16-35—filled the entire sanctuary of Mosque Maryam and the lower level prayer room to hear guidance from the Minister on the divine nature and value of women.
Human beings are the only things created after God's image and likeness, said the Minister even though some Muslim scholars do not want to accept the fact that humans can reflect God's qualities. Minister Farrakhan dispatched their position with two questions.
“How could you be in his image and after his likeness and not have his divine nature? Why are you justified in wearing the attributes of God if you cannot reflect those attributes that are divine?” he asked.
Speaking to the few men in the sanctuary and those who filled the gymnasium of Muhammad University of Islam adjacent to the mosque, Minister Farrakhan said aspects of this special message were for men; however the focus on the day would be on women.
“God cannot make us the head if the woman is not lifted. If God does not lift the woman, the man will never come up, so if God is going to make a new world and a better world, He is going to make that world coming through a woman,” said Min. Farrakhan.
Prophecy fulfilled
She said the Honorable Elijah Muhammad envisioned women in all fields of endeavor representing the highest levels of the divine word of God. The date of this table talk conversation was Sept. 11, 1973. Thirty-eight years later, Minister Farrakhan, as he has so many times before, walked directly into the fulfillment of his teacher's desires.
Mother Tynnetta Muhammad said her husband looked to leadership to take on the “great responsibility of raising our young women as the leaders of a New World Order walking beside our men that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that he could make us so beautiful and so well trained that he could send us out to the world in committees, with that training and the world's attention would be on our women. Whether it was in China—these are his words from those table talks—or any part of the world and the people would come and say ‘who is this?' and want to know where did we come from and they would recognize us by our expression of love, joy, etiquette, cleanliness, good manners, having the knowledge like a bright star in our heads,” said Mother Tynnetta Muhammad. “As you are so beautiful in outward appearance, let us shine up the inside of the house. Let our hearts be as beautiful—or more beautiful—than our outside appearance, and walk with our men into heavenly paradise, the light of the Hereafter.”
A celestial sign follows a strong message
Minister Farrakhan reflected on the stern tone of the message he delivered just one day earlier on Sept. 10 to the women who visited his farm in Michigan for a special Saturday meeting as part of their retreat. The Minister, like a strong and caring leader and father, delivered loving yet firm words that drew cheers and applause from the audience that packed a huge tent set up for the day's activities. (See photos pages 16 and 17.) More acknowledgment of the Minister's divine message came later that evening as dozens of aircraft (commonly called UFOs) appeared in the sky above his farm in New Buffalo, Mich., as a sign after the retreat participants had left the property.
Scriptural foundation
The Minister pointed out that the Holy Qur'an has an entire chapter dedicated to women. Chapter 4 is titled, “Al-Nisa: The Women.” Additionally, Chapter 19 is named after the mother of Jesus—Maryam, which is the Arabic form of Mary. Mary according to the Holy Qur'an was referred to as “the best of women” and the angels were in dispute as to who would have charge of her. She is an example for all women, he said. Despite the critics who claim Islam oppresses women, there is nothing equivalent in the Holy Bible, though there are great women mentioned in the Bible.
“She (Mary) was not an unchaste woman even though the Jews charged her with fornication and even referred to her offspring as an illegitimate child,” Min. Farrakhan explained. “She had to be secretly put away because the Jews at that time, immersed in the Law of Moses, if they saw the woman pregnant and no man, they would have charged her and killed her, so God protected her and the Qur'an says ‘Jesus and his mother were a sign.' A sign is pointing to something bigger than itself.”
Minister Farrakhan defined character as “the mental and moral qualities distinctive to that individual.” He then defined essence as “the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of that thing, especially something abstract that determines its character.”
Speaking to men and women he asked, “What happened to us that our morals are not where God wants them to be, our mental qualities have been curtailed, brought down, even killed?”
Men and women in society have fallen so low, they no longer represent what God intends for them to be, Min. Farrakhan continued. The Minister said the essence of man and woman is God Himself and the essence that determines character is the strength of their connection to The Creator.
In the book of Genesis in the Bible, Minister Farrakhan pointed out that God created male and female and “called their name Adam,” showing that there is no man without a woman. God then gave man and woman assignments emanating from the very nature of His creation “to be fruitful and multiply.” God then gave them dominion giving them the very knowledge needed with which to rule.
“You can't be stupid and rule! He (God) never intended for a woman to be ignorant; he never intended for a woman to be unlearned and uneducated because if you are unlearned and uneducated, you cannot fulfill your destiny,” said Minister Farrakhan. “The enemy wanted you dumb. The enemy wants you to think nothing of yourself, so the enemy strips you of your real nature. He has denatured the female and the male and anytime somebody denatures you, they have devalued you. So right now as a woman or as a Black man, you are not valued, and the worst part of that is, you don't value yourself.”
“You have made yourself a dog and you are bringing the dog out of men!” added Minister Farrakhan. “Everything the enemy puts before you is to make you sexually attractive to a man, and that's why you are in so much pain because you attracted a dog! You attracted a man that acts like a dog and he made a b---h out of you!”
Speaking of popular female entertainers such as Rhianna, Beyonce and Nicki Minaj, Min. Farrakhan said women in general, and Black women in particular, are portrayed as sexual playthings. This reduces the mother of civilization to a degraded state in which the shape of her body determines her worth and creates a society of degenerates, he explained.
“What in the world are we thinking about that we measure the value of a woman by the shape of her backside? Is this who you are? Is this what you want to be or do you want something better?” he asked.
The Divine womb
“You are so valuable that a man should never have you just to have you. He's got to be worthy of you or he's not worth having you!” said the Minister. “There is hardly a man out here that's worthy of you giving away yourself to him. Now there are some out there worthy, but if you are not looking for worthy you will get what you get and you do not look for somebody worthy of you because you have no self-worth—so any man that looks or talks good gets you to lie down with him.”
The act of sex is an act of responsibility. Many women have now become “party mammas” allowing anyone to impregnate them giving birth to children that are raised by grandparents, who pay for the irresponsible actions of their own children. The womb is a “sacred passageway” that should not be easily accessible, said the Minister.
“The chamber to the womb is a sacred chamber that must be guarded,” he stressed.
Using an example from geopolitics, Minister Farrakhan described how much money is spent by nations to defend access to channels and strategic waterways between land masses.
“These geopolitically (canals) are so valuable that they fight for the advantage to be in those places so they can govern, monitor, control and even keep ships they don't like from using those waterways. That's how valuable channels are. The channel to the womb is a sacred channel that must be guarded. The Qur'an says ‘guard your chastity.' ”
A new economic reality
Another critical area Minister Farrakhan outlined was the central role of women in the creation of a new economic and social reality. “Did you know Elijah Muhammad said that the woman is the field through which we produce our Nation? He describes you as earth. Earth is fundamental in everything and so are you,” said Min. Farrakhan. “You are the earth; you are the foundation of civilization.”
Women used to be taught home economics classes which gave them fundamental knowledge of how to sew clothes and cook. This base knowledge not only helped save money because women knew how to make their own clothes, but the knowledge of what type of food to buy and how to properly prepare it resulted in saving money, and healthier people.
He told the audience how Master Fard Muhammad, the Great Mahdi and teacher of the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, emptied out the medicine cabinets of his early followers, saying “your kitchen is your hospital.” Grandmothers and great-grandmothers used simple things from the garden to treat ailments, said Min. Farrakhan.
“The earth itself has everything in it that we need,” said Min. Farrakhan. “They studied the nature of what was around them and when we got sick there was no hospital, they went into the field and picked something up and came in and made some tea for us and we got well. We've lost that power!”
The Jewish people should be studied and used as an example of how a people working together in unity, with a common goal can become powerful, rich and influential, the Minister said.
“In the Babylonian Talmud, Jews are all told ‘you must acquire land.' So Jewish people, no matter where they are in the world, you'll always find them having land, real estate, and cash that they invest,” said Min. Farrakhan.
Their acquisition of land opened the way to embark on trade and commerce and banking and now, the entire world has to go through them.
Black people suffering “indescribable pain” through sharecropping were misused and kept in perpetual debt. Fleeing the skillfully deceptive merchants of the South and the arduous work, many sharecroppers left Southern farms for Northern factories. They did not know, however, that the people who owned factories up North were connected to those running farms down South. Ultimately, this abusive and painful experience diminished the collective Black desire for land ownership.
Cotton comes from the land then is made into clothing that is sold on the market for revenue. Vegetables come from the land and can be eaten and sold for revenue as well. It is a simple formula, essential to the teachings of the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, that has worked for others in the past, the present and can work for the collective Black nation now and in the future.
“Today, you will know that I have a teacher that I am a student of, who loves you so much that he will absolutely train us and is training us to protect you with our lives,” Minister Farrakhan told the women in the audience.