Below the interview conducted by Jabril Muhammad in January 2002 with the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan continues:

Brother Jabril: What then led to and what were the circumstances, which were preparatory, under which the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said to you, "You don�t have to study."

Minister Farrakhan: Well, as he made me his National Representative and allowed me to carry on his National Broadcast, he wrote me a letter and gave me the assignment. He gave some subject matter in a letter for four weeks that I would have to deliver these subjects. After the four weeks he was very pleased. He said, "You can go on a little longer."

As I went on longer, he was pleased. So after six months or so, he said, "You can go on for six years."

At that time, it would take me one week to do a half hour broadcast, because I would write down every word that I was going to say; every scripture that I was going to use. Then I would go back over the language and see if I could say it more succinctly and more effectively if I used this word as opposed to that word, this phrase as opposed to the other phrase. So then I would rehearse it because I�m reading from a script. I did that for three years.

One day I went out to visit with him and he told me, "Brother, you don�t have to do that." He said, "You go and stand up and Allah will speak through you." I did that immediately. I just obeyed him. I never used notes. I started speaking on a subject and would allow God to feed me. This gave the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, I would imagine, a chance to see how God was using me.

So, at the end of the sixth year he called me. He said, "Brother, I will be coming on next week. So you let the public know that Elijah Muhammad will be coming back on the radio next week." So it�s like you give your baby a lollipop and he�s sucking on it and he gets used to it. But you gave it to him and it�s your lollipop. So then you ask him to give me back my lollipop.

Well, now he�s looking at the baby to see what kind of attitude the baby had. Well, how would he know that? He would know that by the way I introduce his return to the microphone. So my next broadcast was called, "Hearken unto the voice of God." So when I sent it out for him to play it in advance of his coming out, he then called me and said, "Brother, you may continue."

So I never gave it a thought that I would tell them hearken unto the voice of God and then he allows me to continue after I�m supposedly introducing him, and he puts me back on. Well, what was he saying?

Subsequent to that, it was getting now into the early �70s, and he is about getting ready to make his departure. He never would praise me in the public, as he did Malcolm. And he told me, when I became his National Representative, he said, "I�ll never teach another Minister like I taught Malcolm until I have thoroughly tried him."

So he was letting me know that I was going to be thoroughly tried before he would open up the wisdom of his wisdom to me. But what he began to see, I believe, in my extemporaneous teaching of his teaching, that God was already beginning to open up to me the inner or esoteric meanings of the teachings that it seemed like other ministers would only teach what he taught. They seem to be afraid to dig into his words to find all the jewels that were in the word. But I call that intellectual cowardice, wanting to be safe but not wanting to explore the depth of what this man had gotten from God. So I decided I was not going to do that. I was going to dig into the teachings and expose that which God showed me.

One day I came out to Chicago. I had made a speech on the Mother Plane and I was showing its spiritual significance and not dealing so much with the physical. The Messenger was very angry, according to the way his assistant minister, Yusuf Shah, represented it to me. He said, "There he goes, out there showing off; yelling out his wisdom." He was letting them know that I was right in what I was saying but it wasn�t the right time, you know. He was whipping me, but praising me at the same time. Somewhere along there, I do not remember the circumstances, he told me, "Brother, you don�t have to study." I didn�t ask him, "What, everybody has to study. Why are you saying I don�t have to study?"

Then as I went on, as it�s getting closer to the time of his departure, I began to see, that as it was written, as I started standing up to deliver his message in his absence, that the scripture was being fulfilled.

As Joshua went forward, God said to him, "I will be with your mouth as I was with the mouth of Moses." Again, I saw this in the writings of Ezekiel and with the writings of the prophets. He�s just with the mouth of those whom He authorizes. So I was gradually coming into the knowledge that I was authorized by God and the Messenger to deliver this message. So He was with my mouth. He also had told me some years before, "I want you to line your mind up with my mind so that there will be one mind." Well, if that�s what he wanted then Allah answers his desire. Well God, through the experiences that he was bringing me through, was lining my mind up with his mind so that it was one mind.

So when I opened my mouth, not only was God with my mouth, but I was speaking that which was from the mind and heart of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad himself. So the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was no longer absent. He was present but he was present in that student that he had made.

I remember one night, at his table in Chicago, I had a tape recorder and I asked him could I tape what he said at the table. He said, "Yes." And during the time at the table he said these words, and unfortunately, I don�t have the tape now as a witness, but God is sufficient as a witness. He said to me "Allah has made me to take His place among the people and I am making you to take mine."

I was shocked at the statement.

More next issue, Allah willing.