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An Exclusive Interview with The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan:

Lessons in Ramadan Fasting Interview with The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, Part 2

 

By Imam Sultan R. Muhammad

 

 

 

​[Editor’s note: This second installment of a 3 part series of a never before published interview with the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, took place in Ramadan on July 3, 2015. The Hon. Minister Louis Farrakhan spoke to me on my request to give special insight and a message of encouragement to the Muslim followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, friends and supporters of the Nation of Islam and Muslims around the world during the last 10 days of the Sacred Month of ‪#‎Ramadan‬.]

 

This year, on this Holy Month of Ramadan, I reflect on the overwhelming number and variety of questions that I have received from around the country. They demonstrate, what I see as, a tremendous desire among the Believers and our Brothers and Sisters from many communities the wish to perfect, learn and understand our rites of Islamic practice Fasting (sawm) and prayer during the Holy Month of Ramadan.

 

Some of these questions I have posed to the Honorable Minister Farrakhan in this interview series for the benefit of the Believers and many motivated by the spirit of Ramadan, although they do not self-identify as “Muslim” that participate in solidarity for what this Holy Month represents beyond acts of religious rituals as a demonstration of Freedom, Justice, Equality and Peace.

 

However, as we grow in the perfection of our rites of devotion we must be careful not to fall into the error of ritualism and envy, as the Quran warns, "those who were given the Book differed only after knowledge had come to them, out of envy among themselves." ~ Holy Quran (3:19)

 

In this interview segment the Honorable Minister Farrakhan reminds us of our need to deepen our love for Brotherhood and Sisterhood. Minister Farrakhan explains love is based in our desire for freedom, justice and equality due to all servants of Allah, regardless of the differences we perceive between ourselves is a key lesson of the fast, which is designed to build this sensitivity to the social and spiritual needs of all humanity.

 

Imam Sultan R. Muhammad: How does fasting influence and sharpen us in terms of the spirit of freedom, justice and equality, as individuals and a collective Muslim Ummah (Nation) world-wide?

 

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan‬: Those three principles of life are with us before the fast, they should be with us during the fast and they should be with us after the fast. But during the fast of Ramadan our minds stayed on the worship of Allah (God) and stayed on the remembrance of the great gift to humanity of the Quran must mean then that following that sacredness of the Quran should be our actions in accord with what the Quran and Allah demands of the believer especially during this Sacred Month.

 

Once you are sincere in your fast you have a sensitivity to the hurt and pain of others who are poor, who are not eating well, who are in areas where there is drought and other calamities. You are feeling their pain but my God, man, if we are fasting and have no sense of what it means to be just - meaning that as the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, ‘justice lays down with you when you lay down, justice gets up with you when you get up.’ The requirement of this universally applicable law is that you must do unto others as you would have done unto yourself. When you wake up you wake up to that law that whatever you put out is going to come back.

 

During the Month of Ramadan you should be more careful of the words that you speak to your wife, to your children, to your neighbors, in the councils that you are a part of. That council should always be that I want for my brother what I want for myself and if that is not intensified during the month of Ramadan we are missing terribly what this Month signifies. It’s not just not eating and having Iftar (Breaking of the Fast during Ramadan usually practiced collectively) and enjoying each other at the breaking of the fast but we continue to do things that we don’t want done to ourselves.

 

 

Imam Sultan R. Muhammad: When asked how the Muslim World could better show the spirit of the Principles behind the Practice of the Ramadan Fast during this Month the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan responses were passionately reflective of the dire state of affairs faced in predominantly Muslim regions of the world. This trial he explained is due to deviation from the true spirit of our practice of faith and envy among each other manipulated by our open enemies that exploit our differences.

 

Since this interview took place, I and a delegation of national leadership of the nation of Islam were blessed to return to ‪#‎Iran‬, with the Honorable Minister Farrakhan. When I asked him why he felt the need to make this journey to Iran he stated his hope was that Allah would Guide him to deliver a final warning to the Muslim nations from the region. He hoped to warn Muslims around the world that the Enemy's desire is to exploit the Sunni-Shi'a divide to further their agenda to occupy the resources of these nations.

 

While in the Islamic republic of Iran, the seat of Shi'a thought and power, last February the Minister boldly appealed to the leadership and people of the two strong holds of Sunni and Shi'a governments- the Islamic Republic of #Iran and the Kingdom of ‪#‎Saudi‬ Arabia. His call was to find a path to reconciliation for the hope of peace among the Muslim nations to unite and expel the foreign occupying interests of the West and settle any differences among themselves.

 

Disgracefully, this year we have seen with the bombing of the Mosque of the Holy Prophet in Madinah during Ramadan, the attacks in Iraq and the rise in civil war among Muslims.

 

 

Imam Sultan R. Muhammad: According to the Tradition of Muhammad’s (PBUH) teaching he point to the reward gained from the discipline garnered in the true observance of Ramadan to be freedom from the hell of our ill deeds and the oppression of tyrannical forces.

 

The teaching of Muhammad the Prophet (PBUH) regarding the last 10 days of Ramadan points to the change of our condition through the Month’s discipline of fasting as a means of our redemption through self-purification from the hells of our own vanities and vices, “Ramadan is a month whose beginning is Mercy, whose middle is Forgiveness and whose end is Freedom from the fire." (related by Ibn Khuzaimah)

 

A Tradition of Muhammad (PBUH) says, ‘Satan is chained’ during this month. Could this mean in the Holy Month that we are not overcoming the fires of our own sin to be freed from the tyranny of our own evils and our open enemies because of our injustice to ourselves? Is the Muslim World qualifying itself through the observation of the fast to receive the Mercy, Forgiveness, and Freedom from the fires of Hell during this Month?’

 

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan: I don’t know what the Muslim world is doing! Fasting is required, staying away from fighting and arguing and the kinds of things we are supposed to stay away from that would damage our fast, but bombing of masjids is still going on. Hatred is still manifested between Sunni and Shi’a, I don’t know whether there is deepening of commitment to Ramadan in that part of the world. That’s what they are supposed to be doing but you know that is Haram (forbidden) that fighting is still going on in the sacred month.

 

Fighting is going on in Adan. Bombing and killing because the Houthis are supposed to be Shi’a. So, are they saying to the world that Allah’s word has no meaning. If I’m going to kill a Shi’a that I don’t have to observe the Holy Month of Ramadan.

 

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan: In the fighting there was cessation of fighting during the Holy months in obedience to Allah and His command to us, so, if there is no cessation – no one is talking about that, then their personal hatred has risen above the Word of Allah. That is a very bad situation.

 

Imam Sultan R. Muhammad: We see ourselves in many ways vainly fighting tyranny of our own base desires during Ramadan but not having the strength to fight the tyranny of the enemy externally, thereby, becoming ritualistic as a Muslim family…

 

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan: Those are good words Brother Imam “thereby becoming ritualistic” and once it becomes ritual it loses its real meaning or value. We do it because we are supposed to do it. So the prayer becomes ritualistic, the actions become ritualistic and the ritual is only getting us into the practice of something much deeper than a ritual. So, those are good words, brother, that could be used and maybe should be used during this month as we talk to ourselves and others.

 

…. To be continued.

 

 

 

 

For official ongoing updates, local prayer times and information regarding the Holy Month of Ramadan and related activities please visit us at noi.org/ramadan Or IslamicSciences.NOI.org.

 

(Imam Sultan Rahman Muhammad is the National Imam of the Nation of Islam and resident Imam of Mosque Maryam National Center, connect online- Instagram, twitter, Periscope @ImamSultanM, #ImamMuhammad)