The Book of Malachi, meaning, “My Messenger,” which is the last book of your Bible, tells us who we should be looking for: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” I will send you who? Elijah! In what chapter does his name appear? The 4th Chapter, verses 4-6.
Now, here is the meaning: The first “4” represents 4,000 years from Moses. Why Moses? Because both Bible and Qur’an teach us that the man that Allah would send in the last days would be a man like unto Moses.
How could you have a man like Moses unless you have a people like the Children of Israel, and, a wicked ruler like Pharaoh and his deceitful magicians? The second “4” represents our 400 years of bondage; and, the “6” represents the end of the 6,000-year rule of Caucasian people.
The far planet Platoon, or Pluto, is 4,600,000,000 miles away from the sun; yet, the light of the sun reaches her and has her spinning at the same speed of the other planets (1,037 and 1/3 miles per hour).
What does this mean? It means that when the Light of Allah (God) touches you, you will start turning and you will be going at the same speed of all the people of wisdom on the planet, as long as you stay in the light, acknowledge the light, submit to the light, bow down to the light and the God Who raised you and brought you to the light.
We all already know that berries are health bombs packed with vitamins and antioxidants. But what about the ones in the supermarket’s frozen section? Dr. Maya Rosman explains.
Frozen berries(photo credit: Albert Arhó)Do berries retain their nutritional value after freezing? The short answer: yes – and in some cases, it’s even better to choose frozen.
When it comes to preserving the nutritional value of fruits and vegetables – freezing is often the best choice. Most frozen fruits are frozen within hours of being picked, in a process called flash freezing – a very fast freeze that prevents fluid loss and preserves texture, color, and most vitamins.
Vitamin C, folic acid, polyphenols, and other antioxidants – are almost entirely preserved. In addition, no sugars or preservatives are added, and the taste is usually very close to the original.
What’s in Berries?
Berries – such as strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, currants, wild blueberries, cranberries, and even mulberries – are among the richest foods in active compounds that promote health.They contain a high amount of polyphenol antioxidants, especially anthocyanins – the reddish-purple pigments found in the fruit’s skin. These compounds have been studied in dozens of studies and found to contribute to:
• Reduction of chronic inflammation in the body
• Improvement in blood sugar and cholesterol regulation
• Promotion of proper blood flow
• Protection of brain cells and support for memory and learning abilities: In a study published in Nutrients, it was found that daily consumption of blueberries for 12 weeks significantly improved cognitive function, memory, and cerebral blood flow in adults with mild memory decline. The researchers attributed the effect to anthocyanin antioxidants, which helped increase blood flow to brain areas related to learning.
• In addition, berries are an excellent source of vitamin C, which is important for strengthening the immune system, maintaining healthy skin, and reducing oxidative damage in cells.
• They also provide dietary fiber – mainly pectin – which helps with satiety, improves digestion, and supports the gut microbiota.
• Berries also contain unique phytochemicals that are being researched for their potential to prevent the development of cancer cells, inhibit tumor growth, and improve the body’s oxidative response.
• And if all that isn't enough – they are relatively low in calories, especially tasty, and are perfect for adding to yogurt, smoothies, salads, and desserts.
Frozen fruit (credit: Albert Arhó)
Calories – And How Much Should You Eat?
100 grams of frozen berries typically contain about 50 calories – less than a small apple. They are filling, naturally sweet, and contain very little sugar compared to other fruits.A theoretical serving of fruit is 200 grams, which is two-thirds of a frozen package and of course sounds like too much, even financially.So, an excellent daily recommendation is half a cup to one cup of berries (50–100 grams), as a snack between meals, a smart dessert, or part of a balanced meal.
How Can You Incorporate Them?
• Frozen berries work wonderfully in a variety of simple, everyday, and healthy recipes:
• Yogurt with frozen berries, granola, and a spoonful of tahini or almonds – for breakfast or a mid-day meal
• Healthy muffins with oats, banana, and berries – quick homemade baking
• Berry smoothie with almond milk, a vegan protein cube, or oats
• Dessert substitute – slightly thawed berries with a drop of silan (date syrup) and cinnamon
Tip: You can add them frozen directly – they’ll release natural juices and become part of the texture. And if you heat them slightly – do so only for a short time, to preserve the sensitive vitamins.
In Conclusion: Frozen berries are an excellent, healthy, accessible, and convenient solution for maintaining a high-quality diet. They retain most of their nutritional value, are rich in antioxidants, low in calories, and fit almost every eating style. Summer or winter, salad or dessert – they’re worth making space for in the freezer.
Love is above the law. Love is the highest manifestation of law. It is such a high principle, that the scripture says that those who demonstrate love are the disciples of God. If we do not demonstrate love, we cannot even claim to be of God. So, what is love?
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Those of us who have studied the lives of the prophets know that they are human beings with human idiosyncrasies, but once Allah (God) touches and raises them where they can reflect the characteristics of Allah (God), then He sends them to represent Him to people who know Him not.
The Christian tradition says, “God is Love.” In that sentence, “God” is the noun; and what follows on the other side of the verb “is” means that it is equal to the noun, because “love” is either a predicate nominative or a predicate adjective.
So, you can reverse the sentence, and say, “Love is God.” The scripture says, “God is love” because of His demonstration of Love. The scripture then calls us to rise to demonstrate love as He demonstrates. How does Allah (God) demonstrate His Love?
The Bible is full of references to the Coming of God. If Allah (God) is Omnipresent, where is He coming from and why does He have to come at all if He is already Present? In a world as wicked as the one we live in, we can hardly feel His Presence because evil so dominates the human being and the human characteristics. We do not live in a world that practices true love.
We live in a world where people write poems about what they do not know (love). We live in a world where people sing songs about something that they have never really understood or experienced.
In this world, love has become a cheap word. On the lowest level, people say, “We made love last night.” If love is sexual intercourse, then it does not last long. If what we need to look forward to of love is that kind of romantic foolishness, then we are as far away from love and God as our foolish expression of love is.
Some of us have never heard our parents say, “I love you.” I lived with my mother for 55 years of my life and not once did I ever hear her say, “I love you.” Did that mean she didn’t? In the Bible, there is a parable about two brothers, whose father asked them to do the Will of God.
One son said he would, but he did not, and the other said he would not, but he did. Then, the scripture asked, which one did the will of the father? So, regardless of what we say, it is not what we say, it is what we do.
The Holy Qur’an mentions very little of love, but it mentions duty. In this connotation, if you tell someone that you love them, love becomes a verb. Duty denotes some activity that expresses the love that you have. It is not the sex act, which is done by too many people who do not know anything about love.
It is very sad to see people thinking that they are in love in a sexual way, but then after they marry, within six months or a year, they find that the light of love has burned out because it never was there in the first place. They were in lust with physical pleasure that deluded them into thinking that it was love. So it had no longevity.
Love is an enduring principle. Yet, most Black people have never really experienced the kind of love that is called “agape” in Greek. If God is love, can it be proven?
Whenever Allah (God) raises a prophet or a messenger from among a people, He chooses that people to be the bearer of the Light of His Revelation to those who walk in darkness. With that Revelation comes a duty on them to demonstrate the Love of God Who raised a prophet or messenger for them and the love of God Who decided to favor them with Divine Revelation.
Both the Bible and Holy Qur’an stress the importance of Moses. In fact, in the Holy Qur’an, Moses is mentioned more than any other prophet. Moses laid a law foundation, and the scripture says that, in the Last Days, there would come a man like unto Moses. The story of Moses, both in the Bible and Holy Qur’an, includes a people enduring horrible oppression.
History teaches that Allah (God) has never been on the side of the oppressor. His mercy and favor have always been historically with those who are the least, not the most; those who are suffering in ignorance; those who are suffering under the heel of oppression, poverty, want and squalor.
If you look at the condition of humanity today, it is clear why Jesus said it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to see the Kingdom of God.
The Holy Qur’an is a book that, if properly understood and carried into practice, ends the world of materialism, exploitation, slavery, war and injustice. So Satan is upset that such a Revealed Word would come because that word is the death knell to Satan’s world.
If we want to understand Allah’s (God’s) love, it is written in the scripture that God says, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters for I know their sorrows. And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians.” (Exodus 3:7-8)
So, according to the scripture, the Lord of Creation is going to visit a nation and a people. That is a great demonstration of love, for Allah (God) to think enough of a people—whom Pharaoh thinks nothing of—to visit them. And a visit by God produces magnificent results.
In Surah 20, verses 10-13, the Holy Qur’an tells the story of Moses traveling with his family in the valley of Tuwa: “When he saw a fire, he said to his people: stay, I see a fire; haply I may bring to you therefrom a live coal or find guidance at the fire.
So when he came to it, a voice came: O Moses, surely I am thy Lord, so take off thy shoes; surely thou are in the sacred valley Tuwa and I have chosen thee so listen to what is revealed.”
According to the account in the Bible, when Moses gets to where he perceived the light, he sees a bush that is burning. How would you react if a star, celebrity or someone of great magnitude that you love called you unexpectedly one day?
Can you imagine the reaction of Moses to hearing the voice of Allah (God)? According to the Holy Qur’an and Bible, he did not see a person, but he heard a voice talking out of a light.
Although Moses had killed a man who was persecuting his people, he was still favored by Allah (God). Allah (God) never condemned Moses. Allah (God) said, “Moses, take off your shoes. The ground where you stand is holy.”
It was not holy because Moses was holy; it was holy because Allah (God) was present and He was standing near Moses. Allah (God) chose Moses to go to Pharaoh, who was the biggest criminal on the planet at that time, to tell him that God said, “Let my people go.”
Can you imagine Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) in a cave in Mount Hira, where he usually went to find solace and pray, and he hears a voice saying “Iqra!” (“Read!”)
You cannot fathom the effect of such an experience except from the person who comes from that experience glowing because Allah (God) was Present and commissioned that person on a significant assignment. A visit by Allah (God) is a completely magnificent demonstration of love, because He is in the most exalted place.
In the Night Journey of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), he traveled from Mecca to Jerusalem and was carried up through many of the prophets to be in a place where only he was worthy to be in the Presence of Allah (God), where they spoke to each other.
That is a profound experience that demonstrates that God cares, because now He is going to guide a human being to deliver a people who are oppressed.
The New Testament, which is called a testament of love, talks about God putting on flesh and coming among the people. According to the Islamic tradition, this belief is foreign, strange and not true.
But Christians believe that Allah (God) put on flesh and came among human beings to suffer in order to redeem a people and a world that was lost under the grip of Satan. Is it possible to harmonize these seemingly different beliefs of the Muslims and Christians?
In the Book of John, it reads, “In the beginning was the word and the word was God.” The Holy Qur’an has many names, but every attribute of the Holy Qur’an is the highest manifestation of the characteristics of Allah (God).
He is The Mighty, The Wise, The Best Knower, The Light, The Beneficent and The Merciful. Since man is what he eats, if you feed from the Revealed Word of God, and live the Word of God, then God lives in you.
The greatest demonstration of Allah’s (God’s) love is that He would knock on the door of your mind and offer you an invitation to receive Him. His Word is Him. His Word, the Word of the Book, has the power to transform human life. It has the power to give sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. It has the power to raise people who are mentally dead and give them life.
The Bible reads, “In the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God, and the word became flesh and that flesh dwelled among men; and the light shined in the darkness but the darkness comprehended it not; and He came unto His own but His own received Him not.”
The Bible talks about the Coming of the Son of Man. This is the man they call Jesus. The Son of Man would come without observation, as a thief in the night, to make Himself known through a people that are no people at all.
He desires to make them His people and He desires to be their God. Since the world has fallen into darkness, bestiality and debauchery, He has a mission for them to be raised from their condition purified and then be sent to clean up the world. He is a human being.
The Holy Qur’an mentions two men—Messiah and Mahdi. Both are men, but the Messiah is going to be taught by God the Wisdom and the Book—the Torah and the Gospel. He is going to raise the dead to life. He is going to determine the form of a bird out of clay and breathe into it, and it will become a bird by His Permission, yet He is a human being.
In that human being will be the kind of power that would make that human being a manifestation of the Presence of God. According to all of the traditions, Mahdi and Messiah will be together.
According to the words of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the Mahdi is a very powerful human being. He said that, “The Mahdi would come out of the family of Muhammad and He would break the cross and kill the swine. He would set down every tyrant and set justice in the earth.”
Master Fard Muhammad
This does not refer to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) of 1,400 years ago. This does not refer to Jesus of 2,000 years ago. These men brought a word, but they never set justice in the earth and they never took down the tyrants. Jesus prophesied of One coming after him. Even though Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) brought the Holy Qur’an, which is a law, he was not a man like unto Moses.
Black people do not want to think much of ourselves, because we do not want to believe that we would be loved enough that we would receive a visit from Allah (God) in a human being.
I want to introduce you to a human being who loved us. I want to introduce you to a man who I never personally met, but I am thoroughly convinced of His matchless love for us.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that Master Fard Muhammad came to us from the Holy City of Mecca. I cannot prove it or disprove it. All I can say is that the Believers believe in what Allah (God) revealed to His servant. That is my foundation. I never saw Master Fard Muhammad, but I saw a witness of His Presence in the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
He taught us that Master Fard Muhammad came to North America by Himself, traveling 9,000 miles from Mecca. Isaiah the prophet said that, when The God would come, He would look around and there would be none to uphold Him, so His own right arm, it upheld Him.
Master Fard Muhammad came alone. That is love. He did not send a prophet. How do we know that He is God? If the lights go out and no one present can fix the light; but then someone comes who is able to turn the light back on, you do not have to ask if he is an electrician. His work bears witness of him.
Allah (God) does not announce Himself. He comes without observation like a thief in the night, because He is coming to get a people that are the captives of another people. Black people are the Lost Sheep that is mentioned in the Bible.
The White man has control over Black people, and he does not intend to let us go. He is holding Black people in his grip even though he does not have anything for us to do. We are unemployed, without any outlook for a job. He has closed his society to Black people. We suffer from a lack of health care, bad education, the worst quality of food, drugs and guns.
The rulers of this world do not have any love for Black people. Since they know that the future is for you and not for them, they are going to hold you hostage so that, if Allah (God) is going to chastise them, then you will receive the same chastisement and go down with them.
That is the way it was with Pharaoh. That is the way it is with the government of the United States of America where Black people are concerned. For someone to deliver us from the condition that we are in, who do you think that person would have to be? For someone to challenge the power of America effectively, who do you think that person would have to be?
Master Fard Muhammad came to America 20 years before He even made Himself known, so that He could study. If He is raising you to reflect Him, you are going to have to study. If He is The Best Knower, how are you going to represent The Best Knower if you do not study?
If you are going to be raised into oneness with Him, then you have to be a student in order to grow up in His Wisdom, to then reflect Him and His power among people.
If you saw a picture of Master Fard Muhammad, he looks like a White man. And you may ask, why He could not have come dark-skinned, like a “real” Black man? But if He did, He would not have come without observation.
The enemy always knew that One would come to free us, so they were always looking for someone who would come out of the East. So the Bible said the Son of Man came without observation. Master Fard Muhammad looked like a White man, but he was not a White man—like some of us look today.
I was on an airplane one day with Herbert Muhammad, one of the sons of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and he asked me why I thought that Master Fard Muhammad had a Black father and a White mother. I said, “So, He could deal justice to both people.” He has to deal effectively both with the White man and the White man’s prey.
The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad
Master Fard Muhammad made His Appearance in Black Bottom, a poor neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan in 1930. Although He was from Mecca, He walked among Black people who had a foul existence. Yet, the stench of our foulness never displeased Him to the point where He rejected us.
He knocked on doors and began teaching Black people of our people in the East. Then, He would tell them about the mosque meeting if they would like to hear more of the Teachings. He would ask them to bring their friends. All the time He was teaching, He was also looking for a man.
In 1931, a man hears about Him and goes to where He was teaching. Sitting in the back of the room with a pair of khaki pants on, and 10 cents in his pocket, was Elijah Poole, the son of a Baptist preacher and the grandson of a Baptist preacher.
He grew up studying, listening to, and analyzing the Bible. So, when he heard Fard Muhammad teach and then ask people to join, Elijah Poole came forward and shook His hand. He told Fard Muhammad:
“I know that you are the One written of that would come.” Fard Muhammad replied, “No one else knows this but you.” In words, do not talk about what you know. Then, Fard Muhammad began visiting and teaching him.
Wisdom is known of its students. If Master Fard Muhammad was not a wise Man, He could not have produced a wise man. He taught Elijah Muhammad for three years and four months. Elijah Muhammad said, “night and day.”
Before Fard Muhammad left Detroit, the police arrested Him. Fard Muhammad sent for His student, Elijah, and when the student came to get Him out, He said, “This is the price you will have to pay to free your people.
If you are afraid to go to jail; if you are afraid to be falsely accused; if you do not have any desire to suffer to see your people free, then you do not know anything about God being love.” They ordered Master Fard Muhammad out of Detroit and He left. A little while later, they arrested Elijah Muhammad.
Master Fard Muhammad suffered. The scripture says of Him, “He made himself of no reputation,” which means that He did not tell anyone about His true Identity. The scripture says, “He became obedient, even unto death,” which means that He submitted Himself to that which was so much inferior to Him, in order to teach a man whose heart was crafted after His heart.
He wanted to teach His student that, if you really love God and love the people, what are you willing to suffer to see your people free? He studied, traveled and allowed Himself to be persecuted.
He taught Elijah Muhammad that he must be able to take plenty in order to raise our people from their condition. His demonstration of love was to show His servant how to love us—and it starts with a willingness to leave an environment where you feel a level of comfort, and go where it appears you do not belong; and find what you have been looking for to make a sacrifice to achieve or retrieve what you love.
He knew that Elijah Muhammad had a heart after His heart. He knew that Elijah Muhammad would suffer anything and everything, even death to free us.
Do not bother with Black people if you do not have it in your heart to lay down your life for their freedom. It is better to leave them alone. Greater love has no man that he lay down his life for his friend, for his brother.
Elijah Muhammad proved that among us for 44 years, even though his assignment was only a clear delivery of the message. He did everything that he could to show us that Allah (God) had visited us and loves us, and is anxious to fight the battle for our liberation.
God is love. He was willing to leave a comfortable environment to come 9,000 miles to live among us to find Elijah Muhammad. Elijah Muhammad said of himself: “I was so deep in the mud that only my eyes were looking out.” But a man that deep in the mud was chosen by God to lift us up.
When I decided with trepidation and some fear that I wanted to rebuild his work, I did not have any money or followers; I only had a desire. The scholars in the Middle East offered me millions of dollars to leave Fard Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad alone and preach Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
One Arab said to me, “If you do this, Farrakhan, we will back you; and when you pass on, we will tell the world that you were the Messiah.” They were trying to bribe me, thinking that I am doing this work to exalt myself. The enemy never wants to give a righteous man any righteous motivation.
Elijah Muhammad chose me to represent him because he knew that I loved you. I have always loved you and I have given 50 years of my life to fight for our liberation. I have been evil spoken of, but you have never heard me speak evil of those who speak evil of me.
I defend those who have been my enemies. I have power to kill my enemies; I have people around me that, if I just pointed my enemies out, they would be dead before sunset—but I would never misuse the love that I see that people have for me. I suffer what the people say. I suffer what the scribes write—knowing that, in the end, I will be the winner.
I want to challenge you. I do not want you to tell me that you love our people. You are the beneficiaries of someone’s love. Some of you dress up in your Sunday “go-to-meeting” clothes—and walk right by your Brother in the street. You will not even knock on the door of your neighbor and invite them to hear the Teachings that you heard that civilized you, yet you claim to love our people.
The light of love in your hearts has gone out a long time ago. Some of you have become bourgeois Negroes hiding in the Nation of Islam. You would not be caught dead in the Ida B. Wells projects. You would not be caught dead on the Westside of Chicago. Your hands are “too clean” to walk in the projects and ride in an elevator where you can smell urine, in order to bring the word to your Brother.
Some of you are scared to death of your own people, but have the audacity to proclaim the name of Jesus. Jesus went where the people were. He went where the sick were. He went where the poor and destitute were. Through love, Jesus offered them the gift of abundant life.
When I was the minister in New York, every day after spending hours at my desk, I would hit the streets. The mosque was on 116th Street and Lenox Avenue, but the junkies were on 115th Street and 114th Street and Lenox Avenue.
I loved them; although their hands swollen with heroin, when they reached for my hand, I shook their hands and hugged them. Junkies would ask me to bless their children. When the police attacked the mosque, it was the people in the street who rose up to defend the mosque.
If the people in the street are not willing to come here, then you should go to them. It is said, “If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain.”
Your work is with your people in the streets, not in bar rooms and clubs. You justify going to these decadent places, by saying that the people are there. But that is only your excuse to go back to the old life that you once lived.
Why don’t you go meet the people in their homes to see the condition of their life? Although the word raised you out of that condition, now you feel that your hands are too clean. You are not willing to go someplace where you do not belong.
It may be strange, but your people are there. The One you say you believe Allah (God) came in the Person of, went there; and we cannot approach His holiness. You utter the word “love,” but many are hypocrites and liars.
This is your challenge. I am willing to give my life if Allah (God) calls for it. It is very easy to lay it down for you. I was a musician, with a promising career. When the Honorable Elijah Muhammad instructed entertainers to choose between their careers and Islam, I gave up my music career, because that was not more important than the Truth.
Music was my life, but when I gave it up—never knowing what tomorrow was going to bring—I only knew that I had to study this word and help Elijah Muhammad to raise the Black man up.
The scripture says, “If any man would be my disciple, he must first deny himself.” The first thing I did was to deny what my first love was. I laid down the life of a musician. I sold storm windows and doors. I washed dishes and loaded trucks.
I did all kinds of menial tasks for very little money, so that I could feed my family. I was not too proud to work a job that would allow me to put some food on my table for my children, and God gradually lifted me.
What are you willing to give up to help your people? Some of you cannot even give up a cigarette for the good of your own life. Some of you cannot give up fried food or cheap food. Some of you cannot give up an adulterous life, if Allah (God) demands it of you.
Some of you claim to be with God, but continue to fornicate, or continue to be a lesbian or homosexual. Some of you claim to love your people, but you are not willing to give up anything that gives you pleasure to prove your love for God.
The Bible says, “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength,” which does not leave anything for anyone else. Allah (God) wants it all. Then, the Bible says that we must love our brother as we love ourselves.
We have received the Truth, which has allowed us to pull ourselves up to begin the journey to a higher civilized life and improve our condition, mentally, morally, spiritually and economically. Do we have similar love for our people?
Can you leave a comfortable environment and go after your Brother or Sister in the street? Can you come out of where you live and go where our people are and bring them up from their condition? You will never find a truer friend than the Brother in the street. If you show him that you care, he will not only love you, he will defend you with his life.
Our people are not bad people. They are simply not well taught, schooled or guided. They are a beautiful people. My challenge to you is: What are you willing to suffer or sacrifice to help the Honorable Elijah Muhammad raise our people from where they are?
I know the demonstration of love from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and I have tried to do the same in my work. So, can you look beyond the faults and see the needs of your people, or are you going to be one who is always condemning our people, calling them n—-rs.
That word should be stricken from our vocabulary, because Master Fard Muhammad never called us that. He said that we are the Original People, the first in the light of the sun. We are the people of God.
If you believe that, then treat our people like you believe that they are more than what they show, because what they show is the manifestation of their ignorance. If you treat them with an evil attitude, you only demonstrate that you have never been raised from a dead level.
A good diet and daily exercise must be accompanied with the right thoughts in order to work for the long life of the individual. Thinking properly is the most difficult part of the health equation to achieve, so we are asking the Black Nation to attack that which appears most difficult, which is to develop the Will to be completely wholesome in mind, body and spirit.
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Why do I say that development of the Will “appears” to be the most difficult thing to do in achieving complete health? We live in a world where scientists have developed all manner of artificial methods to eliminate the effects of wrong habits:
Pills to stop smoking; pills to curtail the appetite; surgery to staple the stomach, forcing a reduction in the intake of food; plastic surgery to mask the effects of living in rebellion against Divine Law.
In a society such as this, where pill pushers advertise that we can “eat all you want and still lose weight,” development of the Will of the individual to overcome all impediments to good eating habits “appears” to be the most difficult approach, but in the long run, it is actually the easiest and most simple path to follow.
To develop the Will of the American people (Black people in particular) to live good, wholesome lives, is to make it easier to change behavioral patterns that have led or are leading to the general destruction of the health and well-being of the overall population.
The approach of government and scientists—spending inordinate sums of money on health problems—has not worked. We, the followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, are proving, with very little money, that we have the ability to change the destructive behavioral patterns of our people, not only as individuals but as a society.
The stigma of hate, bigotry, intolerance, anti-Semitism and violence that the United States government, its agencies and others have deliberately attached to the Nation of Islam is causing the cure for America’s social ills to be obscured while the effects of these ills multiply in diametric proportion to America’s own efforts to suppress the Truth.
If President Bush and the United States government would see (as Pharaoh in the time of Joseph saw) the value of a Divinely guided group of people in her midst, then steps could be taken to take the Revealed Message of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and solve 100 percent of America’s social, spiritual and health problems.
I am trying with the Help of Allah (God) and the few persons working with me, to produce a healthy community of strong, able-bodied men, women and children who are willing to shoulder the responsibility of self-reliance, self-determination and self-independence.
The American food industry has gone a long way in destroying the health and well-being of the American people by its misuse of the knowledge of chemistry. The addition of coloring to change the appearance of food;
preservatives to lengthen shelf life; injection of hormones into livestock to produce speedy growth and a fatter animal—the sum of these profit-seeking actions brings in its wake an unprecedented growth of cancer and heart disease.
Both of which have increased more than 250 percent since the beginning of the century and are now the leading causes of death in this country.
The American Cancer Society reports that more than 35 percent of all cancers directly result from “bad diet,” defining a “bad diet” as one that is high in fat and low in fiber
Huey P. Newton, national defense minister of the Black Panther Party, raises his clenched fist behind the podium as he speaks at a convention sponsored by the Black Panthers at Temple University’s McGonigle Hall in Philadelphia, Pa., Saturday, Sept. 5, 1970. He is surrounded by security guards of the movement. The audience gathered is estimated at 6,000 with another thousand outside the crowded hall. AP Photo
While I don’t have many childhood memories of growing up in Baltimore, one experience had a major impact on my life and thinking. As a youngster, I visited the Black Panther Party headquarters in the city, probably with my aunts or mother, where I learned about Black history through Golden Legacy comic books, and saw Angela Davis, on a poster with her full-blown Afro, as the most beautiful woman in the world.
What struck me most were the powerful images of Panther Party leader Huey P. Newton, as well as images of Newton with Bobby Seale standing outside a Panther office.
I read “Revolutionary Suicide,” comrade Newton’s autobiography first published in 1973, in my early teens. Later as a teenager I read the “Autobiography of Malcolm X,” who was an inspiration for the Panthers.
The work of the Panthers, holding political education classes to awaken Blacks, standing against police brutality, running lunch and breakfast programs, free health clinics, early testing for sickle cell anemia, programs to teach and train Black children about themselves, race and oppression in America and beyond, was phenomenal.
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Many have been inspired by the bold examples of the Panthers and infused some of their activity into modern struggle, from boycotts, to prison advocacy, to political education and organizing, health awareness and services, to video monitoring of police and organizing Black youth.
We should respect the Panthers for their courage, love and even their militant style, complete with black leather jackets, sunglasses and berets, but we must never forget their intense suffering and slaughter.
We must also do more than just remember and lionize these soldiers in the Black Power and Black liberation struggle. According to the Jericho Movement, Black political prisoners languish in federal and state institutions, including Panthers and revolutionaries jailed some 55 years ago.
“Six Black radicals have endured decades of incarceration because of their 1970s membership in the Black Panthers or its offshoot, the Black Liberation Army. In 2018, there were 19 such political prisoners (and who knows how many before then).
After being incarcerated for 40 to 50 years, the other 14 were either released, died in prison, or died shortly after release. (Assata Shakur escaped prison, in 1979, to Cuba where she lives under asylum. She is now 76.),” said the Jericho Movement, which fights to free these freedom fighters.
“It is generally understood that the crimes for which these prisoners were arrested and convicted were pinned on them and/or led to disproportionate sentences by officials eager to neutralize and punish these political activists. They are political prisoners,” said the Jericho Movement.
Imam Jamil Al-Amin, formerly known as Black Panther and Black revolutionary H. Rap Brown, is among these prisoners. We need to do more than quote him from 1967, “Violence is a part of American culture. It is as American as cherry pie,” or talk about him during Black History Month.
We need to act now to save him.
The family and supporters of Imam Al-Amin are fighting to get him emergency medical treatment through a transfer to a different federal prison, one with a hospital. He was an enemy of the state according to the FBI and the U.S. government and was targeted as such.
Imam Jamil Al-Amin, on left, in prison. Photo courtesy of @_freeimamjamilInstagram
During the 1960s and 1970s, he chaired the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and organized for Black voting rights and against southern segregation.
A leader of the Black Panther Party, he demanded justice for Black and oppressed people and condemned U.S. evils at home and abroad.
After years of being hunted by federal authorities, local officials and prosecutors, he served five years in a New York prison, where he converted to Islam in the 1970s, taking the name Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin.
Upon release, he moved to Atlanta, setting up a mosque in the city’s West End and organizing against violence, prostitution, crime and supporting the gang truce and urban peace movement of the 1990s.
“As far as my father’s health goes, it is deteriorating relatively rapidly. We’re dealing with a situation now where we’re in real time watching the system murder my father,” said Kairi Al-Amin, who is the imam’s son and attorney, alongside Atty. Maha ELKolalli. They talked about his life and death struggle in late December during an online forum hosted by the Islamic Circle of North America.
In Atlanta, he was accused of fatally shooting one and injuring another Fulton County deputy while facing some minor charges. He was convicted in 2000 of murder, despite another man confessing to the crime, say supporters. The man matches the description that the surviving officer gave and has a bullet wound in his shoulder the surviving officer said they put in him, they add.
Though convicted of a state crime, the imam served time in a federal Supermax prison in Colorado through an agreement where Georgia pays to have state inmates housed in federal institutions. Pressure led to his being moved to a federal penitentiary in Tucson, where he is still held far from his family and suffers today.
The 81-year-old imam’s medical issues include cancer, problems with his eyesight, blood clots in his legs, using a walker and massive swelling in his face, Kairi Al-Amin explained.
“He had a baseball-sized knot in his face and I’m just glad we were able to get that picture out to the public because saying is one thing, seeing it is another. They claim that they took him to the hospital for that knot,” he continued. But after talks with his father in December, the son said Imam Al-Amin hadn’t seen a doctor since November.
“No hospital in America is going to see a human being walk in with a baseball on their face and tell them, ‘well, you should see another doctor in two months. Maybe they can do something about that.’
And that’s essentially what they’ve done to my father. Not essentially, that’s exactly what they’ve done to my father,” he added. Pressure from supporters moved the appointment with doctors up; it was supposed to happen in January.
According to his son and Atty. ELKolalli, the growth has increased, leaving the imam unable to eat solid food, unable to see out of one eye, and having difficulty hearing.
They are pushing for his transfer to a federal prison in Butner, N.C., which has a hospital. “We want him free because he didn’t do this. But we also have to make sure that while they are holding him, that he’s being cared for adequately and that also is not being done,” said Kairi Al-Amin.
“Unfortunately, you see that Cointelpro still lives; it’s alive and well and kicking. There are things that happen that you just kind of sit back and you say, ‘oh wow, this is interesting how this is playing out.’ This is really just a simple process of transferring this man to a hospital,” Atty. ELKolalli observed.
“We want to see an immediate transfer; we want to see immediate medical treatment. We want people to make the calls and send the emails,” she added.
Supporters of the imam are producing a documentary. It’s a fundraiser. The hope is the project will be completed by summer and ready for resubmission to Netflix or other streaming platforms.
For more information about the campaign or to support the documentary, “What Happened To H. Rap Brown,” visit freeimamjamil.com.
