The Final Call

The death plot against the Honorable Elijah Muhammad

By the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan | Last updated: Oct 9, 2006 - 12:20:00 AM

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[Editor’s note: The following article is based on edited excerpts from an address delivered by Minister Farrakhan during the first Saviours’ Day in his rebuilding the Nation of Islam on February 22, 1981, entitled “A Saviour Is Born For the Black Man and Woman of America.”]

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

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad met a Man in Detroit, Michigan, a Man Who gave many names, but the name that He left us with was Master Fard Muhammad. Many people say that this somewhat mystery man, Master Fard Muhammad, who taught Elijah Muhammad was a false man; but as you can tell a tree by the fruit it bears, you can tell a man by his works.

In the three and one-half years of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s walking with Master Fard Muhammad, He laid out for His servant a plan of action, which later became the Nation of Islam. Master Fard Muhammad said to him, “As you, Elijah, came to My rescue at the beginning of your mission, at the end of it, you will be in a condition that only I can get you out of.” The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said it would take him 40 years to even understand his mission. So the “end of it” meant the end of the first phase of his work, which was a preparatory phase. The number 40 or 4 represents preparation and foundation. The foundation for a government has to be laid and the preparation for the deliverance of a nation has to be made; and at the end of that 40-year period, the Messenger would be in such a terrible condition that only God Himself could get him out of it.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad always referred to Master Fard Muhammad as “The Saviour.”

This government and Caucasian people are the murderers of God’s prophets. And they have murdered every Black leader who has stood up for justice for our people. So for Elijah Muhammad to stand up in America preaching what he preached and doing the work he did in the midst of the most vicious enemy the world has ever known, he had to have a Mighty Protector and a Mighty Saviour. He said to us, “If Allah (God), Master Fard Muhammad, cannot save me, it would show that He cannot save you.” If Master Fard Muhammad, the God of Elijah, could not save His Messenger, then we are wasting time bearing witness to Master Fard Muhammad as the long-awaited Mahdi, the long-awaited Saviour, the long-awaited Deliverer, and we are wasting our time proclaiming Elijah Muhammad as the seal of the prophets and apostles of God.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad told us, if Allah (God) had not shown him how he was going to escape, he would have no hope at all.

All prophets prophesized about a superior One coming after their time. He is known under various names. The Jews are looking for the Messiah. The Christians are looking for the Christ. The Muslims are looking for the Mahdi. Are we looking for three different men? Or are we looking for one Man described and characterized by the different branches of belief, under three different names? The greatest truth to come to the world is hidden in the truth of the man under the name “Jesus.” There are two powerful aspects of that truth: one is the relationship of Jesus to God, because Jesus removes the veil between man and God, bringing understanding of the divinity in human nature; and two, did Jesus escape from death?

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When God shows a man His power, that man no longer has a cloak to fear the world and its temporary power. When the government put the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in jail in 1942 for refusing the draft, even though he was older than the age requirement, he spent nearly five years in jail; he was released in 1946. From 1946 to 1975 is 29 years. The 29th Chapter of the Holy Qur’an is entitled “The Spider.” It reads: “I, Allah, am the best Knower. Do men think that they will be left alone on saying we believe and will not be tried? And indeed We tried those before them, so Allah will certainly know those who are true and He will know the liars.”

This means that at the end of the remaining 29 years of labor of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, bringing him to 1975— making a total of 40 years that Elijah Muhammad worked independent of the Presence of Master Fard Muhammad—the Nation of Islam is going to go under a trial. The spider spins its web at the darkest hour of the night. Scientists say if a creature can get out of a spider’s web within three seconds, it can live. The spider injects something like a needle into its prey, which releases enzymes that break down the creature’s form. Then, the spider sucks up the insides of its prey, leaving only the remains.

Allah (God) is telling us that, after 29 years of the effort of Elijah Muhammad to rebuild after his prison release, a deep darkness is going to come over the Nation. In the dark hour, a spider will come and, while we are going to have time to get out of the web, it is a short time. We have to make haste to get out because, once that spider gets to you, it will fill you with enzymes and break down your form.

All the Muslims who fell in the night, their forms were broken down—their moral form, their spiritual form and even their physical form—because a spider injected them with a poisonous doctrine that classified the revelation that Allah (God) revealed to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad for our salvation as a lie. The culture and lifestyle produced by the wisdom of Muhammad was mocked and ridiculed. The Sisters took off their garments and threw them away. The value of all of the accomplishments of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Muslims were cast aside. And in all of this, the United States government was deeply involved.

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J. Edgar Hoover, head of the CIA, watched the movement of Black people, looking for the rise of a Black Messiah. What did he know about Black people that we did not know about ourselves? There has not been any Black leader to stand up for our people that the government did not plot against. The government was plotting the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s death.

As he began to get more powerful, the ranks began to fill with unsavory characters and around him was a ring of hypocrites, although they all looked good. The Holy Qur’an says that, once Jesus began to share with his disciples more about his identity, he perceived disbelief on their part. According to the Holy Qur’an, Jesus asked them, “Who are my helpers in Allah’s Way?” And the disciples answered, “We are Allah’s.” Then, it says that the Jews planned and Allah also planned and Allah is the Best of planners. What did the Jews plan? Who are the Jews?

We have information, gathered by the Freedom of Information Act from the Counter Intelligence Program of the United States government, that Elijah Muhammad was marked for extermination or elimination. But they could not kill Elijah Muhammad like they could Martin Luther King Jr., because the followers of Elijah Muhammad were the most disciplined, organized group of Black people. What they said was not that the Nation of Islam is violent, but that it has a potential for it; and if the Muslims ever unleash it, they would be the fuse that sets off the dynamite. So if they were going to kill Elijah Muhammad, it had to be done where it would not spark revolution. The plan had to involve people on the inside of the Nation of Islam, as well as the outside. The government had a plan. The Arabs had a plan. The hypocrites had a plan. The Messenger’s family had a plan.

The government’s overall plan was to destroy the Nation completely. The Arabs tested the Messenger, by offering him $20 million if he would send some students of Muhammad University to study in Riyadh and Mecca. He said that he would not waste the life of one student going to Mecca to learn about a spook mystery god for $20 million, and that Allah (God) was sufficient for him. A very highly-placed Arab in the United Arab Emirates, who is a leading man on the Rabata or the Muslim League, confessed to me that they said that since they could not change the “old man”—referring to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad—they started working on members of his family and laboring staff, trying to teach them orthodox Islam.

The hypocrites among our followers also planned. Some of the members of the Messenger’s family began to say, “He is ill. He can’t go on. We will take it over.” The conspiracy was on four levels.

The Messenger was in Mexico when he became sick. They flew him from Mexico, past hospitals in Mexico City that have some of the best doctors dealing in his particular illness. They flew him to Mercy Hospital, a Catholic hospital in Chicago. As he laid in the hospital, he was getting well. Many who visited him can bear witness that he was recovering. Every time that he became sick, the enemies and hypocrites hoped for his death.

The Messenger would repeatedly be brought to death’s door. He would be almost in a coma state in the morning, and by that evening he would be found teaching at the dinner table as though nothing was wrong with him. Why do you think Allah (God) would bring him to death and snatch him back repeatedly? What was Allah (God) trying to get him to understand?

When the Messenger was in Mercy Hospital, he told a visitor that he expected to be coming out tomorrow. That night, they said his condition took a turn for the worse. In Surah 2, verse 72, it reads: “And when you (almost) killed a man, then you disagreed about it. And Allah was to bring forth that which you were going to hide.” The scholars universally agree that this refers to Jesus, but they do not know how it fits.

What is it that they have been hiding for six years? That Elijah Muhammad did not lay down in Mercy Hospital and die of any natural cause. What they are trying to hide is that there was a plan in Mercy Hospital to murder the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

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Bernard Cushmeer (now Minister Jabril Muhammad) showed me a letter that he received from the Messenger in 1966, concerning Daniel the prophet being cut off. In the letter, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that it is written that, in a dark and cloudy day, the angels would come down and take him away. He also said he would be delivered on the heels of a death plot.

In the history of Prophet Muhammad, where it starts from the Hijrah, there was a plot against his life. When they came to Muhammad’s house, he was not in his bed; Ali was in his bed. Muhammad had escaped, or took flight.

After his wife, Mother Clara, died in 1972, he said the end will come three years later. We thought he meant the Judgement of the world, but he meant the end of his first 40 years among us. He had done his job and paid the price; and now he had to drink the bitter cup of death, but a Mighty God and a Mighty Saviour would save him from that death and confuse the enemy. I know you think Elijah is dead, but I’m here to tell you he is as alive as you sitting in that seat. Not only is he alive and well, he is in power now.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad told us, if Allah (God) had not shown him how he was going to escape, he would have no hope at all. One day, he was discussing the finality of death. His son was pressing him with questions, asking if when we die, can we ever be brought back. Finally, he replied, “If he’s a real, great man and Allah (God) favors him much, if Allah (God) gets the body within 24 hours, He can revive it.”

We live in a world where you can die and have an out-of-body experience, yet the White man, with his limited knowledge, can bring you back.

Here is a challenge: If Elijah Muhammad lies dead in a grave, bring the body up. The family exhumed it once and kept it locked in a room in the temple with an armed guard, who was paid to protect a dead body for over a year. Then, they “reburied” it. Among the Muslims, there is a doctor who worked on the Messenger’s teeth who has his dental records. Exhume the body and prove me a liar.

He has risen and I am here to tell you that the Jesus you have been looking for has been in your midst for 40 years and you did not recognize him. We did not know who he was until after he was gone; and when he was gone, we fell apart.

The world witnessed me die and the world witnessed a Nation die. He said he would be gone approximately three years and he was right. I was gone for nearly 30 months, but when I came back to him, he came back to me. What you have been listening to all over this country is the voice of the Messenger. I, Farrakhan, do not have any power to give life, but the voice of Elijah coming through me is giving life now to a Nation. When you now turn me down, you are turning down the Lord that you say you seek. After the tomb was open, they did not see him as he was; they saw him as a God. Now, he is working in the garden, plucking up weeds and separating the wheat from the tare. He is alive, he and The God are together and his return is imminent.

We have determined that this Nation will never go down again. We have determined that you will have to kill us all—men, women and children. We have determined that our people are going to be free. As the Bible says, He will send saviours after them, we have determined that every one of us who has a knowledge of God and the truth has a responsibility to go after our people to save them from the Wrath of God coming down on America.

My Muslim Brothers and Sisters, especially the Muslims who were in the Nation prior to 1975, you have paid a tremendous price to bring about the new rise of the Nation. Do not feel bad about the fall of the Nation. It was absolutely necessary to produce in us the growth into the Messenger, that we would not just know him, but we would act on his word.