The Blessed, Noble Holy Month of Ramadan: ‘Guidance to the Muslim World’

By The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan | Last updated: Apr 21, 2020 - 1:09:16 AM

[Editor’s note: The following message was delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan on the first day of the Holy Month of Ramadan observance during the Ramadan Prayer Line teleconference conducted on Wednesday, May 16, 2018.]

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

Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan

As-Salaam Alaikum, my dear brothers and sisters. Ramadan Mubarak! Beloved Believers in Allah and His prophets, and Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon them), what a great honor you have given to me to ask me to open this beautiful prayer line. We say “Ramadan Mubarak,” meaning for all of those who believe that this is a blessed month, a holy month, a divine month of fasting and prayer, may this month be a blessing to Muslims everywhere on our planet, a blessing to those who observe it. To the Believers, I pray that we will strive to do this fast and make it easy for us. “Fasting is prescribed for us as it was prescribed for those before us, a divine prescription from Allah that we may guard against evil” (Holy Qur’an 2:183), but evil is everywhere in our Muslim world; evil is growing in the Middle East, and the clouds of war are gathering over our Holy Land.

May Allah guide us in this blessed month to understand that we are in the time of judgment: a time of judgment that whatever a man or woman sows, we shall reap it in this time—none will escape the Law of Requital.

So, Allah is the Master of that law and the Master of the Day of Judgment: A “Master of the Law of Requital” means that He can punish whom He pleases; He is not bound by the law for He is the Master of it, and He can show mercy and forgiveness for those whom He pleases. Many in our world of Islam have earned the chastisement of Allah, for Muslims are now killing Muslims at the suggestion of the evil one. Many in our world are destroying self and mosques and others to the joy of the enemy. It is very painful for me, as a Believer, to see what Muslims are doing to Muslims in The Name of Allah. Allah has forbidden us to shed the blood of a Muslim, but now we have put on “the robes of Allah” in our arrogance, and we say “this one is a Muslim, but this one is not,” “this one is a Believer, and this one is not.” We have made ourselves judges of one another because there are different schools of thought, different practices, different cultures that have earned their way or have been brought into the beautiful culture of Islam. So now, Muslim nations are at odds with nations.

President Trump visited the Holy Land several months ago, and in the Holy Land, all of the Sunni nations had gathered in Arabia; Mr. Trump came, Mr. Trump spoke, and in his words he was pitting Muslim against Muslim, Sunni against Shi’a. And here we are, (Saudi Arabia) making promises to buy more weapons from America—billions of dollars of American weapons, weapons that yesterday would have been turned on the enemy of Islam but today these weapons are pointed at one another. When Brother Abdul Akbar Muhammad and I were in the United Arab Emirates a few years ago, I came out of the hotel in Abu Dhabi, and I looked at the beauty of what the Muslims there had built (tall skyscrapers, tall buildings, beautiful thoroughfares, tree-lined streets), and I said to my brother: “All of this can be destroyed in the twinkling of an eye by means of war.” Now the clouds of war are gathering over our holy lands, and the drumbeat of war is going on as we open this prayer line and greet our fellow Muslims with “Ramadan Mubarak.”

How can it be a “Blessed Ramadan” with Muslim nations buying weapons from America, training their weapons on fellow Muslims? Muslims in such disagreement with one another that nations are splitting apart from nations? Guns are turned toward Iran, and Iran is preparing to fight back. Is this a “Blessed Ramadan,” with blood being shed in the Holy Land over Jerusalem? Is this is a “Blessed Ramadan?” The Muslim world felt the pain of the Palestinians under the tyranny of the Israeli Zionists, but now many of the Muslims have turned away from the suffering of the Palestinians, and now their guns are trained at each other.

But then President Trump did something that no president of a Western country dared to do: He moved the embassy of America from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and there he beckons France and England and other nations to move their [embassies] there, though the wise politicians of the past knew that that would disturb the Muslim world, and make the Muslim world angry. Now, Saudi Arabia, unfortunately, is displeased with the Palestinians, saying that they should have accepted a “peace plan” brought to them by America, Israel, and offered to the Palestinian leaders—which they rejected, and rightly so.

I said it years ago: “Israel has not had any peace, at that time, in 40 years,” and now it’s going on near 70 years. Israel has not had any peace—Israel will never know peace as long as there is injustice and lying and thievery and murder, and using the Holy Name of Allah to shield dirty practices, unclean practices, false promises. Now the suffering is great, and greater, of our Palestinian brothers and sisters. Will the Muslim world be angry, now, at what Mr. Trump and America have done? Imagine the ambassador to the United Nations saying “Israel has a right to protect her borders.”

Israel has a “right” to protect her stolen property? Israel has a “right” to take that which was granted to her through politics and not from Allah? Do you think that you will stay there? The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said to me and to us when he was asked, “Will there be bloodshed in the Middle East?” Elijah Muhammad answered it with one word: “Plenty.” He said America will not remain there; you will come out of there, and the bloodshed will be tremendous.

This is what you are bargaining for: the end of your beautiful cities. A punishment coming from Allah, through war, because of deviation from the divine path that Prophet Muhammad laid down 1,400 years ago. And now the Muslim world is off the path, a long way off the path, and are in need of guidance to get back to the straight path of God. But who will guide you? And will you listen to the guidance if it comes from a source that you have no confidence or faith, or believe in? We are waiting for Al-Mahdi—and we have said to Iran, “The Mahdi is not to come, He has already come. And He is with us in America that we may guide you back to the path of God that you may save your lives in this terrible time of divine judgment.” You may believe it or let it alone. Our world of Islam is in serious trouble, and if we don’t stop and take stock of ourselves, and turn back to Allah with sincere repentance, the Middle East will be bathed in blood—and that blood will come all the way up to Mecca and the Holy House.

O Allah, have mercy on us! O Allah, forgive us for our transgressions, and turn to us mercifully; help us to see where we have gone astray from Your commandments to us, and have made the Holy Month of Ramadan a mockery with war and evil planning against each other. O Allah, guide our hearts, that we may come as Muslims and bow down as Muslims, and forsake the wickedness of our advisers from The West, and come back to the straight path of God with Your guidance.

I grieve over what I see and what I know from Elijah Muhammad of what is coming. I pray that we can have a blessed Ramadan.

***

We are not supposed to fight in the Holy Month, and certainly not in the Holy House, but evil is planned … . America would delight to see Sunni guns trained on Iran. Now that Mr. Trump has torn up the agreement that had been made with the Five Permanent Members of the Security Council “+1,” meaning China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, the United States—and Germany; and now the Europeans are struggling, trying to keep the treaty together.

Iran is divided: Some want to keep going; and others are so angry, they want to fight. How can you win if you are divided? How can you win if you will not, inside Iran, sit down and discuss your differences and be of one mind? And if Tehran and Mecca will not meet as Muslims and discuss your differences as the Qur’an has asked us to do, and consult The Prophet, peace be upon him—in this Qur’an, he has given us every guidance against war and for peace. Will you sit down with each other before the great tragedy descends on the Middle East? Will you come together, as Muslims, and put it on the table and listen for the guidance and the word of Allah that will keep us from shedding each other’s blood? Will you do that? Not if you listen to the guidance coming out of Washington will you do that—they want to see you kill each other. They have no love for Islam. They have no desire to see peace, real peace, in the Middle East, for there can be no peace without justice; and there is no justice in their “peace plan” for the Palestinians. How can there be peace if one will not speak the truth to the other, and one will not bow down to the majesty of the truth?

May Allah guide us in The West to show an example of unity during this Ramadan. And make it a Blessed Ramadan. Stop the bickering! Stop being judges of one another, and let Allah be The Judge, as He has said “I”—He didn’t say you or me. He said: “I will settle the differences between the Believers in that day.” Let Allah guide us—He has already sent The Guide. Let Allah guide us! Open your eyes and open your hearts to that which is truth, and bow down, and Allah may have mercy on us, and keep away from us the awful judgment that most of us have earned by our deviation from this Book and the path that The Prophet laid down 1,400 years ago. And heed The Call of Al-Mahdi through His Chosen Messiah.

You are upset? We are not here before you in any vain and arrogant way. We have been chosen by Allah to be a guide, not only for ourselves but a guide for you—for The Light of God is no longer in The East for us to turn to you looking for guidance when you are blinded by your own vain discourse and your vain desires. We have been given a Message for you from The Guide. You cease to believe, or even desire—not “desire,” to even think that Allah would send guidance through a people, a Black people in America; that you say “there is no racism in Islam,” but you lie. God has chosen us to be a guide, you can take it or let it alone!

But here, in America, during this Ramadan: Strengthen our bonds of unity, community to community; bow down together, pray together, break the fast together, learn to love and respect and honor the good that each of our communities is trying to do. Elevate our women. Stop degrading your women, raise them up. Let them become masters in the study of The Qur’an so that they may bring a new generation of Believers onto this planet.

Muslims in America, let the world see that the Light of Allah is with us. Let the world see that we love one another. Let the world see that we honor the Prophet Muhammad by following his path. Let the world see an example of peace and love and unity. And let the world see that the Light that once was in The East is now rising in The West.

***

Thank you so much for allowing me these few moments of your time. Let us make this Ramadan a Blessed Ramadan. And your answer, “Ramadan Karriem”: Let this Ramadan be a Noble Ramadan, a noble beginning of this Holy Month. And every day without fail study your Qur’an; every day without fail gird your loins up. You may eat something in the morning—not those of us who are eating one meal a day. Let us pray this Ramadan that Allah will give us the strength, as we start today, to go through this Holy Month; and let us pray for our Muslim world, and let us act with piety during this Holy Month.

Thank you for reading these words. As-Salaam Alaikum. Ramadan Mubarak.

The Final Call