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"Those who believe that those who are Jews and the Sabeans and the Christians and the Magians and the polytheists--surely Allah will decide between them on the day of Resurrection. Surely Allah is Witness over all things."�Holy Qu�ran, Surah 22, verse 17

On Friday, Dec. 17, we had reached the 7th day of our journey to Egypt. Arriving on Air France from the Charles de Gaulle Airport, I was accompanied by Final Call foreign correspondent, Rosalind D. Muhammad, who is currently living in Paris, along with her husband, Brother Karim D. Muhammad.

This is a journey that comes at the end of the 20th century with a countdown of 13 days more before the beginning of the 21st century. By the time this article is published in our newspaper, I will have completed a 10-day sojourn and a personal pilgrimage to this ancient capitol of the world, Cairo, traveling with The Wise Man, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, who has set our feet on the path of the true worship of the Divine Supreme Being, Almighty God Allah.

In retracing my footsteps, I can go back in time to seven days prior to Dec. 17, to the evening of our arrival in Cairo�s airport on Dec. 10. Or I could go back to the 8th day of December, which was the commencement of Ramadan, beginning for me in the southern part of France where I joined in prayers and fasting with one of our brilliant sisters and student of Qur�an. I could begin my personal account with special details of my arrival in Heathrow Airport with my eldest son, Ishmael Muhammad, and four other members of our entourage who were welcomed by the Family of Believers to London.

Indeed, I could retrace my footsteps twenty-two years earlier to 1977 when the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan was guided by Allah to take his rightful place as the greatest Helper of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad in the expansion of his Great Mission in the Resurrection of our mentally dead people in America and throughout the world.

I could also begin twenty-four years ago to 1975 when the Honorable Elijah Muhammad departed, and include 1974 as a starting point of my personal experience when he exited America sending me to establish a residence in the country of Mexico within one year of his departure. Again, I could retrace my footsteps going back forty-two years, when, as a young student in my senior year of high school, at the age of 16 in 1957 in Detroit, Michigan, when I began my studies as a student of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad to become a bearer of witness to the Reality of God and His True Religion, Islam.

As the Old World is going out and the New World is coming in, we are recording our testimonies in the timeline of history. Each of us has our own personal reflections and memoirs in testifying to the Glory of God and His True Religion of Peace and complete surrender to His Will.

I have never traveled so much in my life so constantly and consistently as I have during the last 10 years of this final decade of the 20th century covering nearly every continent with the exception of the Arctica and the Antarctica poles, though I was so near to both zones, that within a few hours of flight I could have landed there. Traveling in search of knowledge is a sacred path and journey which can bring one close to God in the struggle within to perfect one�s thoughts and desires in reaching inwardly rather than outwardly in discovering the secret of God within. This journey of the soul can be likened to two arrows shot from the same bow as we enter into the mystical union with God, which was the experience of Muhammad in his Night Journey, may Allah�s Peace and Blessings forever be upon him.

We, too, if enlightened, can perceive what others cannot perceive because the Reality of God is the Pure Source of All Light and Wisdom which much come from within.

I wish to state at the commencement of this series of articles which initiates Part Two of my book, "My Life�s Journey Traveling with the Wise Man," that I would not be able to continue this journey without the help and support of the True Guardian of our Faith, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, who has afforded me all confidence along with my family during the past 22 years as a student of the Divine Teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. I also wish to acknowledge my brother and fellow student, Brother Jabril Muhammad. Both of these Favored Sons have never set a barrier or attempted to interfere with my ongoing work and travels in pursuit of knowledge.

I can never find adequate words to thank the Honorable Elijah Muhammad for granting me the Open Door to the Exploration of Truth in the liberation of my soul�s desire to be at one with Allah. My life as well as the life of all Believers must be for God and God alone. And when the end of our days on this earth comes, we must know that it is only the beginning of an eternity with God with no associates, and this are we commanded that we are of those who submit.

Traveling back twenty-four years to 1974 and 1975, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad revealed to me a death plot that was in progress after we departed to Mexico. And he guided me with instructions, some of which were intended for that present moment. However, now as we have completed this 24-year period, I realize that much of it is intended for the present hour.

In 1975, I was suddenly left alone with my four children in the Palace with a personal copy of his Holy Qur�an and his words etched into my heart. When I came to see him in my mind and memory, not as one who is dead, but is alive, the inspiration to continue my life�s journey has guided me to this day. He spoke to me in Mexico about Egypt, but he didn�t explain the details. But in May, within three months of his departure in February 1975, I journeyed to Cairo, Egypt, under unusual circumstances, accompanied by my two eldest children, Madeeah and my son, Ishmael. It was as if we were fleeing into the arms of the Muslim world. From Egypt, we traveled to Palestine, to Jordan, Lebanon, and to Jerusalem to the sacred environs of the famous Mosques of the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsah. Then we went on to Bethlehem and Hebron visiting some of the tombs of the Prophets in the Holy Land.

We then arrived in Jeddah to prepare for our first Umrah visit to the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina where we visited the Prophet�s tomb. We later traveled to Turkey, Greece and the Aegean Sea Island of Crete, site of the Old Minoan civilization. With each step I felt the Guidance of Allah and knew that the Master was guiding my path in the pursuit of Truth, which begins and ends with the acknow-ledgement of Almighty God Allah.

"Surely Allah will make those who believe and do good deeds enter Gardens wherein flow rivers�they are adorned therein with bracelets of gold and (with) pearls. And their garments therein are of silk. And they are guided to pure words, and they are guided to the path of the Praised One." �Holy Qur�an, Surah 22, verses 23 and 24