The Final Call

Uniting Our Ummah

What's your opinion on this article?

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful. I bear witness that there is no God but Allah,And I bear witness that Muhammad is His Messenger.

I thank Allah (God) from the depth of my soul for His merciful intervention in our affairs in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, to Whom Praise is due forever.  For were it not for His coming, were it not for His visit among us and His love for us, and His search among us for one who would carry a weighty word that would bring us onto a path, an evolutionary path of growth and development; a journey that would bring us from a state of spiritual, mental, moral, economic and political death to The Path of Life, that on this journey we could strive to attain “the goal”—and the best of goals—and that is to be “at one with our Lord and our Creator.”

Gratitude for coordinators, speakers on The Ramadan Tsunami Prayer Line

I thank you Sister Nisa Islam Muhammad, Brother Abdul Jalil Muhammad, Brother Abdul Akbar Muhammad, Brother Andre Muhammad, Brother Anthony Muhammad, and Sister Yvette Muhammad, Brother Charles Muhammad, Brother Eric Muhammad, and all of those who made this month so beautiful.  I thank each and every one of our imams, and our beloved brothers and sisters, who spoke during this month of Ramadan.  I am so grateful to Allah for each and every one of you. 

I learned so much this month from listening to my Brother Akbar Muhammad, from listening to my Brother Jalil and his recitation of various Hadiths of The Prophet.  [One  Hadith in particular that touched me very, very deeply was narrated by Abu Hurairah, and collected in Sahih al-Bukhari (Vol. 1, p. 356, no.629) and Sahih Muslim (Vol. 2, p. 493, no. 2248) regarding “the seven under the shade of Allah.”]  And I listened to Imam Siraj Wahhaj, Imam Abdul Malik, Imam Omar Suleiman, Sister Safiyyah Shabazz and Dr. Aminah McCloud, and all of our sisters from the West coast:  I enjoyed each one of you so very, very much!  I thank Allah for this Prayer Line.

May Allah shower His blessings on all of those who made this wonderful Tsunami Prayer Line so magnificent, so wonderful, so technically proficient that many hundreds and thousands of persons around our planet could enjoy the recitations of the many who spoke during our Holy Month of Ramadan.  There’s so much that Allah has laid on my heart to say to you, and to thank you so much for spreading this Prayer Line to the ends of the Earth. 

*********

I gained so much from listening to the various imams who spoke, and the sisters of various communities, and our community, who spoke.  I want the Believers to know that when Allah introduced Himself to His prophet in the 2nd Surah of The Holy Qur’an (Al-Baqarah - “The Cow”), verse 1 states:  “Alif Lām Mīm.”  The translators of Arabic say it means “I, Allah, am the Best Knower.” 

The seeking of knowledge is a duty imposed by Allah on every Muslim, and it is a duty on every human being.  So wherever you can go to get a word of enlightenment, especially a word of enlightenment on this magnificent religion of Islam, go wherever you need to go, and humble yourself and listen to those who have given their lives in study of The Qur’an and in study of the History of Islam to bring to us things that maybe we didn’t know.

Beloved followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad under my leadership:  Wherever knowledge is, it is your birthright.  To listen to Imam Zaid Shakir and other scholars of Islam is a rewarding thing for your soul and for our own evolutionary development.  We are on a Journey that will take all of our lives, and we yet may not attain “the goal,” but we should be striving every day to learn more about this magnificent faith.

So I thank you, Brother Akbar Muhammad, for your words from Ghana under the duress and strain of the loss of your daughter Samaiyah Aziz; and I thank Allah (God) for your studies and what you have brought.  I thank Allah for the efforts to unite our communities.  And I thank those who are striving to sit down with each other and dialogue with love in your hearts for your fellow Muslim brother or sister, so that we can go before the world “ranging in ranks”—united as a solid wall—to overcome the opposition to Islam that is present everywhere in the world.  So I thank all of you who made this Prayer Line possible.

The Work of The Prophet is not done: We are to complete his mission

Beloved Muslims, The Work of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is not done.  So no matter how many times we go to the masjid (or the mosque) and recite our prayers, and are in congregation with our fellow Muslims: When we have finished our prayer and our devotions, there is a Work of The Prophet that is yet undone.

Beloved Muslims, Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, brought to us this magnificent Qur’an.  When Allah chose to return him to Himself, his work on Earth was “done” in that he gave us a Book, and he gave us the noble example of his behavior in complete obedience to The Words that he received from Allah—he gave us his sunnah, he gave us his life to study; but then, he also gave us his mission to complete.  And if we are not in the spirit of taking this message not to “the ends of the Earth,” because the Muslims have taken it to the ends of the Earth; but a new world was discovered, a new world was built.  A new world was founded in the Western hemisphere and that world has in it the greatest nation that has been on our planet in the last 6,000 years, and that is the nation called “The United States of America.”

Does not America need a messenger of God?  Does not America need to be warned and guided away from a pattern of behavior that caused many before her to earn The Chastisement of Allah? 

Beloved Muslims in America, you are a blessing to this nation and to the Western hemisphere only if you get up from your prayer rug and put on the mantle of The Prophet, and begin the work of spreading the news of this Qur’an.  Because “The Judgment” is based on: “Did you hear?” “Did not My reminder come to you?” “Did not you hear a caller calling to you, calling you to Islam?” “How did you respond to that call?” [Please consider Surah 21 Al-Anbiya (“The Prophets”), verses 36-50]  Did they reject The Call after they hearing the call;  and was the message made clear to them of The Warning of Allah, and what pleases Him and what displeases Him, and inviting the people to surrender to The God Who created the heavens and the earth? … 

O, Beloved Muslims:  We have a Work to do until Allah calls us in.  It is not just about “going to the mosque” or “the masjid”.  It is not just about going to a prayer together at Eid, because your “festival of fasting” is yet a festival of preparation to get up and go out and continue The Mission of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

‘Give me a double portion’: The spirit needed to complete The Prophet’s Work

Beloved Muslims:  (During the Third World Friendship Tour, 1997-1998), when I was in Mecca during the last 10 nights of Ramadan with several members of my family and community—they treated me with such honor and respect.  They sat our party where the king sits in Mecca, in Al-Haram Mosque; they took us into the private quarters of the imam of Al-Haram, and there we spoke with the imam, and we went and sat through the night, and stayed the night for the ’Isha prayer, for the Taraweeh prayers, and then for Fajr prayer in the morning.  O, Allah…  During that time they gave me a police escort and we traveled to Medinah to The Prophet’s Mosque, and I said to Sheikh Ahmed Tijani ben Omar:  “When I get to the mosque, show me where The Prophet is buried.” 

When I arrived to the mosque in Medinah, The Prophet’s mosque (Al-Masjid an-Nabawi), I went and I stood to pray, and one of the guards came to stop me, thinking that I was praying to The Prophet.  But I was thanking Allah for Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him; I was thanking Allah for this noble human being through which this Qur’an came.  I was thanking Allah for the spirit of that man—and I begged Allah to give me a double portion of the spirit that He gave to The Prophet, that I might be a worker in North America to continue his work to completion.

There are witnesses that saw the tears roll down my eyes as I prayed, and asked Allah—and I have not stopped one minute:  No sickness, no nothing has stopped me from bearing witness to the greatness of Islam!  The only difference is that I thank Allah for the man that brought me to the door of this magnificent faith called “Islam.” 

And I say to those who are in The Nation of Islam, and have evolved to The Universality of Faith:  Please do not look down upon that which brought you up from death.  Please do not look down upon that which started you on the road to Allah.  As I was reading my Qur’an this month, I came to an ayat (verse) that said that Allah created us from “worthless water.”  (Surah 32, verse 8 - “Then He made his progeny of an extract, of worthless water.”)  I want you to just think about that, The Prophet of Islam himself was created from “worthless water,” every human life is created from “worthless water”—and that is your first stage of development.  Why do you rise at Fajr, at the dawn, to pray, when the sun is not yet full?  You see “light mixed with darkness.” 

Fard Muhammad, a Master Teacher, came to us, and The Teaching He gave us was comparative to “the dawn”:  It is darkness mixed with light because we had been in a state of death.  And you cannot bring us from death to life in “a second,” it’s a gradual process even as it took Allah (God) 23 years to reveal this Book to The Prophet.  Not in one sitting, but over 23 years.  Can’t you see beloved that you had to come through “stages” to get to The Universal Message?

Prophet Moses, who is one of the greatest prophets in The Qur’an:  That man spoke to a specific people who were under a specific condition.  Elijah Muhammad spoke to a specific people under a specific condition in a specific country that needs to be guided and warned. 

Why do you think, beloved Muslims, that in your reading of this Qur’an for this month it keeps telling you over and over again about Noah and Abraham, and the people that rejected and mocked their messengers, and called them “mad,” and torrid liars against Allah.  And then Allah warned them, and warned them, and warned them, and then chastised them; and The Qur’an says, “Away with the people of Noah,” “Away with the people of Lot,” “Away with the people of ’Ad and Thamud”—“Away with them,” “Away with Pharaoh”! 

Allah killed them all because they rejected a message from a faithful messenger who came among them and warned them.

‘Arise and Warn’:  An appeal to The Ummah, a reminder of our duty

Who is the messenger that will warn America?  Who will warn an errant nation that is going to hell—and taking the world down with it?  Who will rise up to do this work?  And we say, “Here are we.  Send us.” 

Just don’t send us to the mosque to pray!  Just don’t send us to feasts and festivals!  Just don’t send us to enjoy the company of a fellow Believer!  Send us to The Work to attempt “the uphill road.”  I recite to you these verses (1-6) from the Surah 74 Al-Muddaththir (“The One Wrapping Himself Up”): “In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.  O thou who wrappest thyself up, Arise and warn, And thy Lord do magnify, And thy garments do purify, And uncleanness do shun, And do no favour seeking gain.”

I’m appealing to us, to those who say you “love” The Prophet:  Then get up; arise from where you are!  Arise from a slumber of death where you become just “practitioners of rituals” but forsaking The Mission of The Prophet!  Get up!  Arise and Warn!  Thy Lord do magnify!  Thy garments do purify!  And all uncleanness, let us shun!  This is what The Fast of Ramadan is all about:  1.) Preparation; 2.) Cleansing; and 3.) Discipline. 

“Discipline” for what?  So you can go about a Mission bigger than yourself, bigger than your mosques, bigger than your masjids!  Bigger than your school of thought, because it makes no difference what you know if you are not imparting knowledge to those who don’t know, so that their lives will be better off because of us.  America needs to be warned … 

America needs to be warned. 

*********

Our people, the Black people of America, have been enslaved for 400 years—who will bring the message to us?  Who will stop the killings in the neighborhoods of America; the gang warfare, the drug conflicts that are rife throughout the Caribbean, Central [and] South America, every city inside of America? …  Who will warn America like Lot came to say to those who were lusting after men: “What is this that you are coming to a man with lust in your heart as you should a female?”—who will cry out in America that “Allah is displeased with this, and His Chastisement is on the way.”  WHO WILL RISE TO DO THIS WORK? 

O, Beloved Muslims:  It’s on us.  So just don’t say you love him!  Pick up the mantle, as it was with Elijah and Elisha.  Elisha, in the Bible (II Kings, Chapter 2, verses 9-15):  If he could only see Elijah when Elijah ascended, he wanted the mantle of Elijah to fall on him; and he asked for a double portion of the spirit of Elijah.  Don’t say you love The Prophet, and run away from his mantle!  Don’t say you love The Prophet, and run away from asking for his spirit to go out among the people who have not heard, and give them the right to hear; and make the message clear, and give them the great arguments that are in The Qur’an! 

That is why I thank Allah (God) for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.  He taught me!  He showed me, by his love, his concern—not just for Black people—but it had to start somewhere.  Beloved Muslims, Beloved Followers of Muhammad, Beloved Lovers of Allah:  Let us rise to do The Work that Allah has put on us.

Our duty to correct Western misunderstandings about Islam

When you scholars study the history of our Prophet—not just “yours,” he’s mine too!  You’re not the only one who loves him; we in the Nation of Islam adore him because without him we would never have had one ayat of this magnificent Qur’an.  How could we not love the one who laid the foundation that we are standing on in America?

Elijah Muhammad said to me: “They call me a ‘Black nationalist’.  ‘Black’ is not national, ‘Black’ is universal.”  He was trying to tell me something; that the way he taught us at first was absolutely necessary to shock us out of the condition that we were in—and to shock the Caucasians who look at themselves like an arrogant peacock, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” 

But in The Eyes of Allah, America needs to be warned.  She has incurred The Anger of God, and His Chastisement is not “to come,” it has already entered into America.  And the whole Earth will reel and rock from the displeasure of Allah for what has happened and is happening in our world of Islam, and in the world in general.  So all of these punishments that we read about in this Qur’an during this month:  None of those punishments came to the people of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.  There were battles; there was death, but not “violent winds,” not “the destructive force” that came to the people of Noah and Lot, and Pharaoh.  That is reserved for today.

“America the beautiful”—the most beautiful country on Earth physically, but ugly in our deviation from The Path of God.  O Muslims:  Arise and warn.  Thy Lord do magnify, thy garments do purify; and uncleanness do shun.

Master Fard Muhammad:  I could not dishonor The Work that He did by denying Him.  I could not walk away, and not say “Thank You” for His Coming; “Thank You” for what You delivered to us that started us on this Journey.

We have now come all the way up from “death” to “The Universal Message” of this Qur’an; not to “one people,” but to all members of The Human Family.  We are called now to The Mission, to complete The Work of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in the Western Hemisphere, where his name is thrown about like he’s a “mad man” or “he is evil,” or, the God Allah is some “wicked god.” 

It is our duty to correct the misunderstanding of Western man about Islam.  And it is our duty to present to the Western world the best and the purest example of not what Islam looks like, but what Islam is.  That is why reconciling our differences, dialoguing with one another, embracing a Muslim with love is important … 

I love all Muslims.  I don’t care about their “thoughts”—their school of thought; I love them for saying, “Ashadu an la illaha il Allah, wa ashadu ana Muhammadan Rasul-lu-lah.” (“I bear witness there is no god but Allah!  And I bear witness that Muhammad is His Messenger!”)  I love them for their striving to be better than what they were before their Islam.  I love our Christian Family.  They deserve to know the real message of Jesus The Christ!  They deserve to know that he was not only a Muslim, but he was one of the best of Muslims because he obeyed Allah totally and completely.

Remember:  “Arise and warn.”  “Thy Lord do magnify.”  “Thy garments do purify.”  “Uncleanness,” let us shun. 

Go seek knowledge wherever you can obtain it

And to those who are thinking about the Deen Intensive Academy that will be meeting in Detroit: If you are able to spend the day with Imam Siraj; to spend the time with Abdul Malik, and with Imam Zaid, and others, and Brother Akbar Muhammad and Brother Carlos and Brother Jalil, and others, and myself:  There is a great blessing.  I may not come physically, but I will come via Skype; but I shall, by Allah’s Grace, be there.  Wherever knowledge is, if you can go, go!  If you can get there, get there!  If you can spend the time to listen and to learn things that you didn’t know about your own faith:  Go!  Listen!  Learn!  Prepare!

And I pray that Allah will grant me life, if it pleases Him, to take 10,000 from America to Hajj:  A “Great Pilgrimage” to the holiest spot that Allah has given to us as our qiblah, or as “the focal point” of our faith. 

*********

I think you understand not only the message that Allah (God) guided my heart, I believe, to give to us all, but I also believe that Allah’s (God’s) Spirit was a part of this message.  I just pray that all of us will love this Prayer Line that we are blessed to have and keep working to improve it, and make it better and better.  And I pray for all of those who were with us last Ramadan who didn’t make it to this Ramadan because death overtook them; and I pray that each of us that are on the Prayer Line that Allah will grant us life, and bring us through our sicknesses and our challenges, that we may meet again next Ramadan.

One of our imams recently stated:  “Let’s not be Ramadan Muslims,” “Let’s be Muslims every day of the year,” thinking of the poor and the weak, and the orphan, and the man that is “in the dust”; and let us go and “free a slave,” and awaken the masses.

Thank you for reading these words.