What did you accept when you accepted Islam?

The Holy Qur’an chapter 33, verse 23, says, “Of the believers are men who are true to the covenant they made with Allah; so of them is he who has accomplished his vow, and of them is he who yet waits, and they have not changed in the least.”What did you accept when you accepted Islam? The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan posed this question to us and answered it. He stated, “What I accepted, when I accepted Islam was: A Man and His Mission.” If we do not clearly see this man, we will find ourselves on a path, not knowing who that man is, that man from whom we should seek guidance and model ourselves after. If we do not see the Mission clearly, we will find ourselves on a path seeking other than Allah, Most High, among the idolaters and polytheists.

If we have accepted, with clarity, the Man and his Mission, we must go to war with the darkness of ourselves so that we may be worthy of the Mission. As a Muslim, once we have accepted the Mission of Muhammad, we cannot stay unchanged; having heard the Message and having been shown the example.

We must understand that no matter what families we come from, no matter what communities we come from, there is no free pass without confronting the struggle of self-purification. The purification of our hearts must be exemplified in our deeds and proven in our self-sacrifice.

Who is this man? Muhammad (PBUH) fought against tyranny and oppression. He taught against, tribalism, racism and slavery. He championed the rights of women and stood against materialism and idolatry. He participated in the rebuilding of the Holy Ka’bah and restored the Black Stone to the cornerstone.Muhammad (Peace be upon him) did not have a mission to build a nation of Arabs. He had a mission to build a Nation of Islam. His mission did not stop with his personal struggles, family or immediate community of his day.  He had a global mission to all humanity.

Muhammad (PBUH) through this action, in his youth, began to unite the tribes and avert bloodshed among the Arabs before the Message of Islam was delivered, while his people were yet still in the days of Jahiliyyah or the times of ignorance in Arabia.

What did you accept when you accepted Islam? We must remind ourselves, that there is a duty, for we, the Muslims, to erect, and rebuild from its foundation the destroyed Ka’bah, which can be represented as our lowly broken selves; in the mud of ignorance. We must rebuild ourselves for we are a broken people. We cannot stop with ourselves and families. We must take that Mission of Muhammad out into the streets, into our communities, and out to the world of fallen humanity. Let us go from our places of worship and bring life to them through the resurrection of our people. For without this Mission, we are simply personality worshippers—worshipping a man and the structures that we call masjid, temple, church or synagogue. We are simply idol worshippers and polytheists, if we do not put into practice the Mission of Muhammad, “a Mercy to the World.”

If we accept a man, without following the Light of Guidance given to him by Allah through his heart, we are no more than worshippers of the stone and bricks of the Ka’bah. We see some of our Brothers and Sisters in the East and the Muslim world that fight over the Black Stone in the rites of Hajj, as though it is the Source of Power and Force that raises humanity from the spiritual death of ignorance. We fight just to touch the Ka’bah walls, not realizing that we ourselves are the true Baytullah (House of Allah) or agents of Allah (God).

If we are not careful, Brothers and Sisters, we will find ourselves following a path of deviation and a religion void of transformative power.

If one does not change the condition of his heart, how then can our community be changed?  “Allah only desires to take away uncleanness from you, O people of the household, and to purify you a (thorough) purifying,” says the Holy Qur’an, chapter 33, verse 33.What did you accept, when you accepted Islam? Was it a Man and a Mission? Was it a Way of Life? Was it a Source of Power and Force that moved you to do what must be done for our mental, physical and spiritual survival according to the goodness of our very natures?

If Allah (God) found a people that were perfect, Muhammad (PBUH) says that He

(Allah) would destroy them all and create a new people that would sin so He could forgive them. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said: “I swear by Him in whose hand is my soul, if you were a people who did not commit sin, Allah would take you away and replace you with a people who would sin and then seek Allah’s forgiveness so He could forgive them.”

Let us reflect upon the Mission that we are to shoulder with Muhammad (PBUH). If we look in the history of Muhammad (PBUH) we will see the necessary steps to take. And we will better see the one in our midst, in present time, that is taking these steps and exemplifying the actions of Prophetic Tradition. For Minister Farrakhan has stated: “If we do not study the history of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) we will not see the Honorable Elijah Muhammad clearly.” If we do not see these two clearly we will not see Farrakhan Muhammad clearly.

We must unite the Muhammads. We must come to the understanding that these Muhammads are one Muhammad through the Prophetic Mission of Salvation, Resurrection, and the Knowledge of Allah (God) established by Prophet Muhammad ibn Abdullah (PBUH). Master Fard Muhammad (the Great Mahdi), the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, and Minister Farrakhan Muhammad, are one and we are one in Muhammad, if we pick up and shoulder that Mission of Muhammad (PBUH).

Sultan Rahman Muhammad is the resident imam for the Nation of Islam’s flagship Mosque Maryam in Chicago. This article is based on the imam’s Friday congregational prayer address at Saviours’ Day 2014 in Detroit. Join the conversation by using the hashtag #TheManAndHisMission).