The Final Call

Minister Farrakhan Delivers Remarks at Funeral For Abdul Rahman Aquil Muhammad

By The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan | Last updated: Apr 30, 2019 - 2:00:26 AM

What's your opinion on this article?

I bear witness that there is no God, but He and we thank him for his merciful intervention in our affairs in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, who came among us to guide us back to the straight path that our ancestors believed and followed before they were brought into the Western Hemisphere and made slaves.  

We thank Master Fard Muhammad for choosing another son of Georgia, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and we thank the Honorable Elijah Muhammad for his fearless, uncompromising stand on behalf of our people.  

It is his example that Brother Rahman followed. It is his example that made us men. It is his example, his teaching that made us women. It is his teaching that made us soldiers in a Cause bigger than ourselves.

We thank him for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and this son of Georgia, Brother Minister Abdul Rahman Aquil Muhammad. I greet all of you with the Greeting Words of Peace. We say it in our original tongue, As-Salaam Alaikum (Peace Be Unto You).

To our pastor, Dr. Toussaint King Hill, Jr. Our thanks to you, dear pastor, for always opening the door of this historic house of worship to allow the Muslims to come and speak here, bury our dead here, marry and go into life’s journey from this sacred place. I came here many years ago and was in the office of the brother who was the predecessor of Reverend Toussaint, the great friend of Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph David Abernathy. I found in him a brother and a friend. A man that not only loved Dr. King, but he loved our people and that spirit seems to be with some of these great sons of Georgia, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Hosea Williams. We could name all the great ones. But “The Rock” of all the wonderful men and women that Georgia has produced, great spiritual guides and teachers and warriors—I must be a little personal—but of all the warriors that Georgia produced, it is this warrior that I believe will be born out: He was the greatest of them all. 

When the Honorable Elijah Muhammad chose him and when I read the program or heard the obituary, you may not know but the first minister, James, was from Boston, Massachusetts. He was a great musician and we were friends in Boston. I never knew what happened to him. When I visited the mosque, on February 26, it was in 1955, I looked and there was the man sitting there who was a friend of mine, a musician. He wrote even some arrangements for the songs that I would sing. So when I saw him and I was in the balcony, and I was waving at him, but he looked like he didn’t recognize me, but it was the discipline of the Muslims that he did not show any movement. And to think that my brother, Rahman, came under his leadership and became the best minister that Georgia ever produced for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. 

Now, when Elijah Muhammad said to The Rock, “I want you to be my helper in Atlanta.” Honest Rock said, “Dear Apostle, I used to cut the fool in that city.” And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad responded, “I used to cut the fool down there, too. So you go to that city where you used to cut the fool and raise those people to life.” And, that he did.

To the beloved family of whom I’m a member, to the beloved friends and followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and to all of those that his life touched, I know that if you could speak, you would have so many wonderful things to say about our  journey with Brother Rahman. But in Islam, our funerals or janazahs, we’re not permitted to do eulogies. We’re not permitted to sing sad songs, any song. That’s why you won’t hear the organ play, you won’t hear somebody singing a beautiful song because this is in honor of one who can’t hear the song, can’t smell the flowers.  

So, he lies here as an example to us of how he used the time that God gave him. So, we’re not allowed to give these talks about him, not during the janazah service. No sad songs because God knows the pain because he is the author of life. And no soul comes to life without His permission and He also is the Author of Death and none of us can die without His permission. We don’t care what the doctors say. It is God who calls time, but ofttimes, with our help. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us there’s no set time for us to die. What? But the Qur’an says, the term is fixed. Well, if there’s no set time for us to die, how is the term fixed? You fix it by the way you live the life that God gave you.

God never brought us to this Earth and gave us this wonderful thing called Life without giving us the Guidance of How To Live This Life to the Fullest—until the time comes when our body’s so weak it can’t sustain life. Then it is time for us to return to Allah, time for this body to return to the Earth. God is a Merciful God. When we speak of Allah, we call him in Arabic, Al-Rahman, Al-Rahim, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Don’t you know that the God of Mercy knows how painful it is for us to be separated one from another by death?  

Why would God give us life knowing that all of us are going to die?

Why would God want us at the time of death to be burdened with grief? It is natural to suffer sorrow for a loss of a loved one. But it is improper for the righteous to grieve because grief is like a cancer. And, when you cannot understand God’s Will in bringing you here, God’s Will in returning you to Himself, then you grieve. You’re not at peace with what God has caused to happen and if you’re not at peace with God, this becomes a terrible, terrible event in the life of those who are left behind.

So, God has put in each of us what is necessary to run the race of life. There are certain hormones that are present in the brain and when we’re afraid, we can lift weights better than we have before, run faster than we have before. But there are also hormones that cause us to bear the tragedies of life, the misfortunes of life. So, all of us are going to experience misfortunes in this life. But the question is: How do you handle it? Who wants to be separated from a loved one? How should we accept the angel of death?

To our Christian Family, the scripture says, “the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” But then it says, “blessed be the name of the Lord,” so that when death visits us, and it’s going to visit us all, sometimes the visit will be to us directly. So, the Qur’an says, “Allah is He who takes men’s souls by night.”  And if the decree of death has not fallen upon that soul, then God returns that soul back to that body and they go on another day, another week, another month, another year until it’s their time. But those on whom the decree of death has passed, he keeps those souls to Himself.  

Remember the prayer momma taught you, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Each of us by nature are the Children of Peace. And, peace with God can only be attained when we know His Will and Submit to His Will. No matter what the situation is, we enter into a Peaceful State of Mind. And in that Peaceful State of Mind, he releases hormones in the brain that allow you to bear up under sorrow, bear up under loss, bear up under the things that life brings to every life that stays here any length of time. 

So, we’re not here to grieve over our brother. We are not here to fall down in sorrow. We are here to praise God for the life that he gave us in Brother Abdul Rahman Aquil Muhammad. So, may Allah’s peace be with the family. May Allah’s peace be with those of us that his life has touched. May Allah’s peace be on us to bear the pain of our loss.

I would like to ask the funeral director if he would turn this casket where the head is facing North and the feet are facing South. Islam teaches us the science of life, and the science of death. 

Islam teaches how to bear all the things that life brings to us, some  by our own hands and some by the permission of God. But we always take what God gives and we say thank you. I learned how much of a Muslim I was when I was three minutes from death, on a table blood pouring out of me. But I never asked God to spare my life.  

In those closing minutes, I thanked Him for the time that He let me live in the marvelous beauty of His Creation. I thanked Him for giving me the Word of Truth that can raise Black people from death and human beings from death. I thanked Him. So, that if it were my time to go, I would die with the praise of God on my lips. Rahman left with the praise of God on his lips. That’s when I found out that I really was a Believer. 

When I met my brother in Chicago as a Lieutenant, he had to say an oath to come into the Fruit of Islam and that oath is a part of our prayer. It goes like this: “My prayer, my sacrifice,” finish it with me, “my life and my death are all for Allah, the Lord of the Worlds.”

When you finish that oath, you can’t be angry with God if He calls you on the word that He gave you. So, we place his body where the head faces North and the feet face South. Because all those who are living travel around the Earth and equator facing East, facing West. But when the soul is gone as I kissed my brother’s forehead yesterday, it was cold like the North Pole.  

His feet cold because he no longer walks among us. But when he walked, he did such a work that when God called him to walk no more, to talk no more, he said enough. He did enough that we can feed on the works of such a man and be inspired with the time that He’s left for us.

Thank you, Allah, for our brother. That’s how you show God your gratitude—not your hurt, not your pain. Thank you, Allah, for the days, the weeks, the months that we were communing with our brother. Thank you, God, for what he taught me to make me a better human being. Thank you, God, for the life that he lived that taught me how to soldier for God. Thank you, Allah. So, this is a time when we show God how grateful we are to have met a man like this, been taught by a man like this, that gave life to us from a man like this.

We’re going to say the janazah prayer and ask the sisters who have mints to give you to come forward. Master Fard Muhammad said just put this mint in your mouth as you come to salute him. Each one will come by and salute our brother, put your hand over your heart because he gave his all to this and what a joy it is to follow him to his final resting place.

This candy represents the fullness of each of our lives. So, as you put it in your mouth, your life is like this candy if you’re a righteous person. When you put this candy in your mouth, it’s full but the natural juices wear the candy away. Pretty soon it’s not there anymore; but what it leaves is the sweet taste. So, it is with the righteous, they’re like a sweet piece of candy. But the force of life itself, wears us away. But when we leave, we leave behind the memory of a sweet communion that we had with our brother.

To my beloved friend and pastor, we use the word Communion. Each first of the month, as a Christian, you come to church and you take what is called Communion as a remembrance of the Last Supper of Jesus, the Christ, when he was among us. He broke the bread and he gave it to his Disciples and told them, “eat this in remembrance of me.” Bread is not the bread he’s talking about. He’s talking about the word. He meant to them, “feed on my word in your heart.” 

When you feed on Christ, when you feed on the word, when you feed on Muhammad, when you feed on the word of the Qur’an and his example, he said, “You will never go astray.” So, Jesus took likewise at the supper, he took the cup and he gave us to drink. And he said, “This is my blood, wow, that I shed for the New Testament,” meaning “there is greater wisdom coming down the pike and I got to live the life in order to enjoy the blessing that’s coming because I tried to live that life.” Then Jesus knew that you would never be in this world without him. He said, “And lo, I will be with you always ‘til the end of the world.” So it is with any of us who die in the Lord. No such thing as death. What we found is Eternal Life.  

We die.  He dies. But he had a baton in his hand. Who will live the life that I lived? Who will walk the path that I’ve walked? Who will suffer for the sake of truth like I suffered? Then take this baton in your hand and in that baton is my life and it will continue until the kingdom is established and peace all over the earth reigns supreme.