The Final Call

Our commitment to strong marriage secures our nation

By the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan | Last updated: Aug 8, 2012 - 3:55:00 PM

What's your opinion on this article?

[Editor’s note: The following article is based on edited excerpts from an address delivered by Minister Farrakhan on July 30, 2006 at Mosque Maryam in Chicago, Illinois. Full message available on MP3/CD/DVD @ Store.FinalCall.com.]

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

There is so much going on in the world and what is going on in the world will certainly affect us. We have entered into Armageddon and it will get deeper, wider and broader. It is a war against Islam, and Islam is in revolt against itself because of deviation from Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) from those within the world of Islam who want to bring Islam back to its pristine purity.

Islam will win; that is written. Some may say, “I’m a Christian.” No, you, too, are a Muslim because your nature is to submit to the Will of God. You believe in Jesus Christ and so do we; but mere belief counts for nothing except that that belief is carried into practice. God’s way will rule. The Bible tells us that a government is going to be set up on this earth—not by U.S. President George Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Chinese President Hu Jintao, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi or Russian President Vladimir Putin—but by the Messiah, the Christ Himself.

No matter what is happening in the world, our condition will not be changed substantially by looking at Israel bomb Lebanon or see Hezbollah hold off the mighty Israeli army—which beat the whole Arab world in six days, yet in three weeks is still bogged down with Hezbollah. This is the beginning of the defeat of Zionism, wicked capitalism and all that is against the purpose of God for the true freedom, justice and equality of all human beings.

There is no success in building a nation without the building of family. There is no success in the building of family without the respect and honor for the institution of marriage. However, we are beset with divorce and the problem of infidelity. As a result of divorce and infidelity, hatred is building between mothers and fathers, which is causing children to suffer. We can talk about many things that are important in life, but nothing is more important or sacred than family and the cornerstone of family, which is marriage.

I want to see successful marriage in the Nation of Islam and among Black people. Marriage in Islam starts with the recognition that we are not complete without a woman, or without a man if you’re a woman. But the critical part of male/female relationships is in setting up a social context where men and women can meet each other under proper circumstances that do not degenerate into vile speech or actions. Every mosque should set up proper social circumstances for single Brothers and single Sisters to meet each other. The proper setting is not at clubs or places where women are disrobed and men try to pick up a woman for a one-night stand.

In Islam, we respect the role of the parents. If a Brother is interested in a Sister who is of age, he does not approach her; he talks to her father. The father is the authority. The wife, of course, is the co-authority and the appeal must be made to the head of that house. If that process turns out well, courtship begins.

In this world, courtship is sampling the goods before buying it; and Sisters, that is a huge mistake on your part to let any man have his way with you and then later you decide whether you will or won’t get married. If I pressed most of you who are involved in courtship, I would discover that you have had a sexual relationship.

Once you become sexually involved, it interferes with the process of judgement. Sex is like a narcotic that intoxicates the mind. With certain drugs, they caution you not to enter into any contract, drive your vehicle or mix this drug with alcohol. Sex is like that. When you get involved sexually with a man, under that intoxication, you think you are in love.

***

In the Bible when Allah (God) wanted to exalt and make Israel a great nation for His glory, He sent down strong law because, if the Children of Israel would grow under that strong law, they would become the foundational stone for a world that respects the sovereignty and righteousness of God and His law.

Similarly, by living the law, we would find greater peace, harmony, love, and brotherhood inside the Nation. Fornication and adultery were punished by death. Why would God, Who is the ultimate in forgiveness and compassion, ask for a woman or man to be stoned to death for adultery? Whenever a married man allows a strange woman into a relationship with him, he has broken the bond and interfered with the life of his marriage. There are huge consequences.

As the war widens overseas, it is coming to the United States. The streets are going to bleed in America and it is only a strong sense of family and brotherly love that will help sustain us. But it can never be if a woman sees another woman coming after her husband or a man sees another man coming after his wife. Then, the brotherhood is broken. A Brother cannot say he loves the brotherhood if his desire for sexual contact with a married woman is more important than the brotherhood that we are trying to build. A Sister cannot say that she loves the sisterhood if her desire for a married man takes precedence over the sisterhood. In so doing, we are destroying a bond that is absolutely necessary when the attack from the enemy comes against us. We want to know that the person at our right, at our left, in front of us and behind us is really our Brother or our Sister.

Adultery is punished by death because adultery brings the death of marriage and family. Adultery is a termite that undermines the pillars of nationhood. And although with fornication, the person is not married and therefore have not broken any vow, the punishment for fornication under the law of Moses was also death. All of these actions we take for granted are destructive of the process that Allah (God) intended for human beings in our growth to become one with Him.

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said, “Marriage is one-half of faith.” What is faith? The journey of faith is like a child born into the world that grows, matures and evolves to become one with the Creator. When we become one with Allah (God)—as the Holy Qur’an says: “Oh, soul that is at rest well pleasing with thy Lord and well pleased”—you have reached a state of bliss in the human existence after a long process filled with trials.

The life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and the life of Jesus Christ were filled with trial, persecution, tribulation, hardship, loss of property, loss of life and diminution of fruit, but Allah (God) is trying the soul that wants oneness with Him. If marriage is one-half of a journey like that, what kind of a person would enter into a marriage thinking that everything is going to be all right? What kind of sailor are you to set out to sea only prepared to sail if the waters are calm?

If you are a sailor, you sail in all kinds of weather. You try to navigate your ship through the storm and do what is necessary for your ship and its cargo to survive. The ship and its cargo are the man, woman and the family. Every marriage has to go through storms, but if you are only the type of sailor who wants your marriage as long as everything is okay, then your marriage is not going to last long.

The Bible says, “This wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign” and Jesus said, “No sign shall be given to you except the sign of Jonah. As Jonah was in the belly of the great fish, three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth.” Wicked and adulterous have equal value in this sentence. You may believe that you are not a wicked person but, if you are adulterous, you are wicked because you undermine trust. You undermine faith and marriage and begin the process of the destruction of family. Therefore, you become a traitor to the building of a nation.

When you are having sex with a strange woman other than your wife, you are not thinking of yourself as a traitor. But I want to put it in those terms so that we can really see what we are doing to our nation that we claim we love; but more importantly what we are doing to our wives, children and families that we claim we love.

Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights. Allah (God) had a job for Jonah to do, but Jonah was hesitant in accepting a responsibility that God was laying on him. So he was running and dodging while God kept allowing circumstances to grip him until finally a great fish swallowed Jonah. In the belly of that fish, he realized that he was fighting something that he could not win against. He had to ask himself if he was ready to stop fighting God and surrender.

The moment Jonah prayed, confessed and became ready to do what God had called him to do, the fish spat him up on dry land. From that moment, Jonah became the great prophet of God.

How does that story apply to a wicked and adulterous generation? The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that Allah (God) is calling on us to do a job, not just for ourselves, but a job for humanity. The suffering that Black people have endured has given us a heart that, once the vessel is cleaned and purified and the right word is put in us, we can bring the world up out of its present madness. But first, we have to be brought up out of it.

In Surah 30 of the Holy Qur’an, called “The Romans,” the section entitled “A Transformation” reads: “Corruption has appeared in the land and sea on account of that which men’s hands have wrought that He, Allah, may make them taste a part of what they have done so that they may return.”

Isn’t that beautiful? Corruption has appeared in the nation on the land and the sea. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad talked about the corruption of the air, land, water, etc. Today, we are all victims of that corruption in government. Judges are corrupt. Businessmen are corrupt. Police are corrupt. Ministers are corrupt. Teachers are corrupt. Parents are corrupt. There is a price to be paid for corruption. In our families right now, corruption is causing us to pay a price. In our families, there is argument, distrust, dissatisfaction, hurt and pain because of corruption.

My Sisters may become angry with me with my concluding words, but I have to tell the truth. In the nature of things, there would not have been a devil on our planet if a scientist had not learned how to separate the weaker germ, the brown germ, from the Black germ. This history is full of symbolism, but yet it is deep because, in the atom, there must be control. It does not become destructive unless you split it.

Allah (God) has given men authority over women. The enemy knowingly broke the Black man and freed the Black woman from the control of the Black man, so that he could become the controller of the Black woman. The White man’s control destroyed her and she became the force of destruction for our nation. The Book of Genesis in the Bible says that God created the man first. This is not male supremacy. Then, God created the woman and gave her to the man as a helpmeet. Man was under the direct authority of God and woman was to come under man’s authority, but a snake entered the picture and the snake is always trying to destroy the natural controller and usurp the position of God.

One of Allah’s (God’s) attributes is The Controller. He did not simply put planets in the universe, He put control on them by means of law and as long as they submit to the law and come under control, they have perpetuity.

That is why there has never been a teacher like the Honorable Elijah Muhammad because he was trying to raise us under the control of God, that we could once again get control of our woman. Although women may not like this kind of teaching, women are out of control and because they are out of control, they are sentencing the Nation to death.

In the Nation of Islam through the Muslim Girls in Training and Fruit of Islam classes, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad returned a measure of control to the Black man over the Black woman and she loved it because we had submitted to the control of God and that made it easier for her to submit to our control because it really wasn’t our control; it was God controlling our house.

The Bible says that Christ is the head of man; man is the head of woman; and woman is the head of children. But Satan has destroyed that order. As men in the nation, we have lost the moral authority in our houses because of adultery. We have to put the blame where the blame belongs. We have violated our contract of marriage and our oaths. We have violated our wives and our families. How can we make a strong family again?

To my Muslim and African Brothers, we can talk about having more than one wife because it is written in the Holy Qur’an, but are we qualified for that? If you cannot handle one wife, how are you going to handle two wives? Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) introduced polygamy because of the decimation of the male population, which resulted in too many women becoming widows and children becoming orphans. There was a social reason for polygamy and Allah (God) revealed to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) the time and circumstances under which sex should be applied.

Some men like to read a few verses in the Holy Qur’an that satisfy their salacious desires, so that they can engage another woman other than their wife and break the peace and trust in their homes. After a man destroys the beauty of his wife, especially if she is a faithful woman, then he wants to claim he is a man of God.

But men break women’s faith in God by what we do with God. We have ruined our nation. We have ruined our families. Can we get it back? Of course, we can. Allah (God) says: “I am going to make you taste a part of what you have done so that they may return.” Return to what? Return to that straight path that gave us moral authority in our houses, which we have corrupted and lost.

Have we had enough of the pain of a broken home, a broken marriage and confused children? If we have, then let us try again to make our word our bond, rebuild our marriages and families, rebuild our broken trust and, in the process, rebuild our nation.

I hope that we will make a commitment to marriage and family and let nothing break up our families. If, as men, we have been in error, then we must confess and ask for forgiveness and do not bring any more corruption into our homes. Sisters, if your actions have driven you to unbecoming actions, then come back to your self and come home to God and let us rebuild our lives and our nation.