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Teacher and Spirituality
By
Marvin X
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was our
greatest teacher. We need only list a few of his
students such as Malcolm X, Warithdeen Muhammad,
Muhammad Ali, Minister Farrakhan and myself among
thousands of others here and around the world. Name
another teacher with such outstanding students!
Recently I was selling books on the
street at my outdoor classroom, downtown Oakland. A
Chinese man walked by and seeing my book display, asked
if I were Muslim. I said yes then asked if he were
Muslim. He said no but said he loved Elijah Muhammad.
We are slow to recognize our Master
Teachers; in fact, most have never heard of a master
teacher. Elijah was our greatest, far greater than John
Henri Clarke, Dr. Ben, Karenga, or any other so-called
black scholars who more than likely studied the
teachings of HEM. Elijah was a unique, original creation
of Allah.
He was taught in the one-on-one Sufi
tradition by Master Fard Muhammad for three and a half
years, similarly, Elijah taught Malcolm X for three
years, one on one. Master Fard appears to have been an
associate of Noble Drew Ali, founder of the Moorish
Science Temple in America. Elijah took the name Elijah
Poole-Bey in the Moorish Science tradition. In The
Theology of Time, he talks about his knowledge of
Moorish Science and interaction with them while he was
on the run for seven years.
Elijah appears to have been Fard's
best student and cried crocodile tears when his master
was arrested and deported in 1933 for immigration
violations, i.e., inciting the so-called Negroes with
racial hatred. Elijah and Fard’s relationship is very
similar to that of the greatest Sufi Master Rumi and his
teacher Shams of Tabriz. After Shams was murdered, in
grief Rumi began reciting his legendary poems while
whirling around a pole, thus the origin of the whirling
dervishes, that even now make him the best selling poet
in America. After Master Fard disappeared, Elijah
eventually blossomed into the personality we know today.
Fard placed Elijah in charge of the
Nation of Islam and thus began his long journey to
become the most feared black man in America, mainly
because his teachings were indeed supreme wisdom for a
people spiritually deaf, dumb and blind,
When Elijah's leadership was
challenged by his associates, including his brother, he
had to flee for his life for seven years. For another
five years he was in Federal prison for sedition and
draft evasion during World War Two. His wife Clara
Muhammad assumed much of the leadership and
administrative responsibilities while he was away. One
day she will be recognized for her contribution to the
black nation. Her son Warithdeen recognizes her more
than he does his father, but this is because he was
twelve years old when he came to know Elijah, since
Elijah had been gone for twelve years.
Upon release from prison, he
continued organizing the NOI. Fard had taught him an
Islamic theology designed specifically for the so-called
Negro, better known as the Asiatic black man in the
hells of North America.
The teachings were naturally
unorthodox and considered by detractors outside of
Islamic tradition, although there are similar examples
of NOI teachings in the Shia and Sufi traditions, such
as the concept man/God/God man of Guru Bawa, or the cry
of Al Hallaq as he faced martyrdom, "Ana Al Haqq," or I
am the truth. But the main focus of Fard's teachings
were black consciousness and black nationalism, similar
to the Sufi teachings in West Africa that helped inspire
the fight against colonialism, from such masters as
Ahmedu Bamba in Senegal to Usuman dan Fodio in
Hausa-land, Nigeria.
Fard taught Elijah to use black
supremacy as a psychological trick to get the so called
Negro out of belief in white supremacy. The teachings
were a more than necessary antidote to shock the so
called Negro into manhood and womanhood, after centuries
of physical and mental slavery, the servile, passive
submission to the terror of American racism. Elijah's
Islam was a panacea for the myriad ills of the colonized
black nation in America.
The main lesson Elijah taught was do
for self or independence. Elijah wasn't the first
teacher of do for self, but he was the best. There had
been a plethora of black nationalist teachers and
organizers during the 19th century, including David
Walker, Henry Highland Garnet, Denmark Vessey, Nat
Turner, Martin Delaney, Pap Singleton,Henry McNeal
Turner and the greatest 19th century intellectual,
Edward Wilmot Blyden, author of the classic
Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, 1889. Blyden
influenced the Pan African Duse Muhammad Ali who taught
Marcus Garvey.
Aside from Noble Drew Ali, Marcus
Garvey made the greatest progress during the early 20th
century. Garvey had been taught Islam and Pan Africanism
while in London during 1912 by the Egyptian Duse
Muhammad Ali, from whom Garvey got the concept One God,
One Aim, One Destiny, Africa for the Africans, those at
home and those abroad. Duse Muhammad Ali edited a
newspaper, the African Times and Orient Review.
Booker T. Washington was a contributor, himself of
Muslim origin, consider his name a corruption of Abukr.
Marcus Garvey made great progress but
was betrayed and deported. Elijah built upon Garvey and
where Garvey failed, Elijah succeeded, successfully
building a spiritual and economic empire that astonished
the world, especially the so called Negro for whom it
was created as an example of what must be done.
Today, three decades after his
transition, the teachings of HEM are being manifest in
black entrepreneurship throughout America, slowing the
brain drain of the black nation to American capitalism.
Elijah's teachings inspired black liberation, the black
arts movement, black studies, and black Christians are
heeding the message of do for self, accumulating real
estate and businesses on the model of Elijah's
teachings.
In fact, the Christians are outdoing
Muslims because after the death of Malcolm X, many
Muslims converted to orthodox Islam and settled for
ritual rather than Elijah's liberation theology and
nationalism. Malcolm didn't have time to establish his
Muslim Mosque, Inc., and his Organization of Afro
American Unity.
Even Farrakhan's Nation of Islam is
more ritual than substance. He has done nothing with the
million men who marched in Washington. For the most
part, they are lost and turned out, pants sagging like
prison homosexuals, earrings in both ears, grills in
their mouths looking like alligators, posing cool,
imprisoned and criminally inclined, while their women
rush to become highly educated for the new world that
their men apparently will not enjoy with them unless
they jump out of the box like jack and get a healing
real quick. The black woman has discovered that rather
than do bad, she can do quite well by herself.
Some people are fixated in time as a
result of the Malcolm/Elijah conflict. But did not
Elijah tell Malcolm to trust no one and guard against
jealousy and envy? After all, jealous and envious
Negroes had chased and tried to kill Elijah for seven
years.
According to Nisa Islam, former
National Sister Captain of the NOI, who lived in
Elijah's house for several years, every time she
mentioned Malcolm to Elijah, he cried like a baby,
especially when she asked him if he killed Malcolm. She
said he considered Malcolm his son. Certainly there were
jealous officials who feared Malcolm's power, and they
would/did gladly conspire with the US government to kill
Malcolm.
These NOI officials didn't give a
damn about Malcolm, Elijah or anybody else except the
golden calf, i.e., money and power. Elijah was as much
an obstacle to them as Malcolm. When Elijah became sick,
one brother in charge of funds told me how officials
came to him demanding money. He told them, "I'm not
afraid of you guys, I'm afraid of Elijah." He knew
Elijah had mystical powers far beyond the mentality of
these Muslim officials.
When the brother was killed in the
Los Angeles shootout with police, Elijah had told
Malcolm that things happen in war, in revolution, and
sometimes we lose a brother but we must continue until
victory. And so we must continue. Malcolm was lost, we
cannot remain stuck on this incident. In truth, you
haven't done anything Malcolm said, Elijah said, prophet
Muhammad Ibn Abdullah said, or anyone else. You've been
doing nothing but bullshitting and faking.
Where is your warrior spirit after
all these brothers have come to you? You have submitted
to religiosity, myth/ritual that has nothing to do with
building your nation which is the reason Allah send
Elijah and everybody else. You are content to sit around
praying in dresses. You could have stayed in the church
and prayed—and put on dresses.
God sends you teachers from among
yourselves, yet you reject them for the message of
foreigners who have nothing but contempt for you. You've
traded one slave master for another, the white man for
the Arab man. You want to be an Arabian Knight. You
speak Arabic but can't speak English. You refuse the
concept do for self. Maybe you will get the concept in
the next century or two or three.
posted 5 July 2006 *
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update 30 July 2008 |
