The Oneness of God

By the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan | Last updated: Nov 25, 2009 - 7:08:36 PM

[Editor's Note: The following article contains excerpts from a timely message delivered by Minister Farrakhan on October 11, 1992 at Christ Universal Temple in Chicago, Illinois, pastored by the Reverend Dr. Johnnie Colemon.]

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

David the Psalmist said, “How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” The union of male and female and the physical joy that persons in love share is secondary to the joy that comes from the spiritual union of persons of like mind and spirit. The world is filled with division and hatred; the evils of sexism, racism, materialism and classism. But Allah (God), Who is at the root of all creation, is One. He declares His own unity.

In the Old Testament, He made Moses say to the people, “Know that the Lord your God is one.” He makes Jesus to repeat the theme that God is One, that he (Jesus) was one with his Father. In his oneness with the Father, when you saw him (Jesus) you saw the Father (God) because Jesus was a perfect reflection of the Father. That's oneness.

The theme that we all are one is picked up in the 112th chapter of the Holy Qur'an. It says: “Say: He, Allah, is One.” Whence came the division since Allah (God) is one and He is The Source of all creation, and this creation that we were birthed into is called universe—“uni” meaning one; “verse” meaning truth. It's based on One Great Truth.

Allah (God) is The Author of all diversity. He created diversity. He didn't want us all to look the same. He didn't want us all to be the same, but there was a common thread that He put in all so that all, one day, could become one even as He is one. I would like to quote a few scriptures from the Qur'an and the Bible to talk about this oneness.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan

In the Qur'an, Allah (God) says, “I created you from a single essence and I created your mate (female) of the same essence and from these two, I have spread many men and women.” So, in the deepest sense of the word, I am your Brother and you are my Sister, not because I said so, but because God made it so.

What is the root of the tribes? What is the root of the families? What is the root of the nations? The root goes back to One, so don't get carried away with your differences, because God created us in tribes and families that we may know one another. Allah (God) did this. How dare us take our differences that Allah (God) created to exalt ourselves one above the other? How dare us take our differences in biology to exalt one above the other? When we understand God's purpose in creating us with this diversity, then out of that diversity can come The Divine Unity.

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In our universe there is a sun with her family of nine planets. The scientists are beginning to say that there is life out there in other spheres. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad has taught us for years that all of the planets in this circle have life on them.

The sun is the god of these nine planets. All of these planets depend on the light of the sun to create motion and to bring life out of the water that is on each of these planets. The beautiful thing about these planets is that all of them have different colors and all of them have different water. All of them have a different atmosphere, but the source of their life is from one sun that gives them life, light and energy, causing each planet to spin and to be attracted into an independent orbit so that no planet will collide with the other. They are different, but they are one. They are different, but they are a part of one universe. They are different, but they function from one law.

We give ourselves all these different nationalities and sometimes these nationalities get us confused. We take pride in our national flag, our national anthem, our borders that separate us one from the other, but the earth is our home. The earth is that which produces this human being, the animals, insects and vegetation—all of many different hues. So, at the root of all this diversity, is a Oneness, a Unity and a Divine Law working.

How did we become divided? It happened in the Garden of Eden. Allah (God) gave instructions to Adam to “eat all of the fruits of these trees except this tree, in the midst of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The day you eat from it thou shall surely die.” Allah (God) goes away and gives him Eve, and then Satan comes. Satan is always making interpretations to help you to see the thing that you want to do in contravention to God's orders. Satan doesn't have to have any kind of form; he just whispers to us from the vain imaginations of our own hearts. We begin to twist our minds around Satan's interpretation and our disobedience becomes justified and evil is made fairseeming to us.

When Adam fell, he didn't fall off the rostrum; he didn't fall from the Empire State Building. He fell from the state of mind that made him one with his Creator. Adam's fall has sentenced humankind to death—physical death, in that we live so short a time. But, the greatest death of all is spiritual death, because we have become estranged from Allah (God). By being estranged from God, it is only natural that we would be estranged one from another, each one glorying in their sect or their party. “I'm a Christian; I'm a Muslim; I'm Orthodox; I'm Sunni; I'm Shiite; I'm Baptist; I'm Methodist …” We really get wrapped up in ourselves. Allah (God) didn't create any of this. He gave you the nature and the nature is constant; it is: “Obey God. Submit your will to do God's Will, and you become His child. Obey Allah (God), and you become His offspring. Rebel against Allah (God), and you become an enemy.”

In the scriptures, Adam's fall—his death—was that his eyes came open and he saw what he was blinded to before he tasted of the forbidden fruit. The moment his eyes come open, he dies. He's still walking around in the garden, but he's dead. How is he dead? If you don't understand death, you don't understand resurrection because you wouldn't need a resurrection if there were not a death. And then the scripture says that, “All in Adam died, while all in Christ shall be made alive.”

Adam once was alive. He was at one with God. God breathed his spirit into him and he becomes a living soul. What spirit? We breathe the oxygen of the atmosphere; that's one kind of inspiration. But the real inspiration that Allah (God) gave Adam was direct words into the two ears, like the breath came into the two nostrils. That's why Jesus said, “He that have ears, let him hear.” The ear will be the instrument of salvation because it is only when the Word of God comes into the ear, and we allow it to penetrate into the heart, that the change will take place; that our oneness will become a reality, instead of a hope. So Adam died because of his disobedience to Allah (God), and his eyes came open to a lower self. In rejection and rebellion to Allah (God), there is the death of the power that Allah has given to us as human beings to reflect Him.

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Christ is the source of life for all human beings. Christ, as taught in the scriptures, is the hope of the world because Christ says, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you will never be in darkness.” That's powerful. Well, if he is The Light, then like the sun pulls planets of different colors into their spheres, and orbit, Christ pulls people of different tribes and nations and colors and the sexes and races and nationalities and makes them one. But they must be in him (Christ) in order to be alive.

The Qur'an says, “I created you in the womb and one of you is a believer and the other is a disbeliever.” Jesus was not desirous of our having fellowship with devils. Jesus wanted his people to be separate. He said, “Be ye separate,” because he didn't want his followers mixing with the world less the world contaminate them. He was pulling them out of the world to prepare them for a Kingdom that was not of this world. Jesus did not want true Christians having fellowship with disbelievers and the wicked. He didn't say you shouldn't be kind to them or loving or just, but you can't have fellowship with them. He talked about the separation of nations, that when He comes He will separate the people, sheep and goat, the wheat and the tare. We all can't be one unless we are going to be one in him. If we are going to be believers in God, we can't have oneness with the disbelievers in God because our practice is not the same in terms of principles.

The work of the believer in God is not to be satisfied that we are alive now; attracted and pulled by the light of Christ into the orbit of righteousness. We have to now use that Christ-like Spirit and Love to redeem those who are lost. Once you accept Christ and accept righteous principles, you are in the midst of people who have accepted the death of Adam, and they are not compatible one with the other. You can show love to them, but you must be on guard. That's why Jesus said, “You must watch as well as pray.” You can't go around thinking that everybody loves you. You can love, but your love must be an intelligent love that is also within the bounds of wisdom. Jesus Christ, in his sermon on the mount, gave his followers a certain attitude, state and orientation of mind that they must be at one with. They called them the “Beatitudes.” “What do you mean, ‘be attitude'?” It means that you must always be in this state or orientation of mind.

You can love, but you are in the midst of a sea of hate. You can love, but you are in the midst of a sea of rebellion and it is your ability to suffer that will redeem those who need to be touched at the core, because, at the core of them is God Himself—but the core is buried under the rubbish of this world's life. You can only reach it by being willing to suffer to redeem The Redemptive Power of Love.

The scripture teaches “God is love.” That's a big statement. Love is not this mushy stuff. You can't say God is love, and think love in that context is some emotional thing. Love, then, is not an emotion. It is deeper than that. It's the embodiment of principles that bring joy and peace to human beings: Freedom, justice, equality, obedience to The Will of God. God is the embodiment of all righteous principles, and when you love, you demonstrate those righteous principles. Whom God loves, He chastens much. Oh? So loving has something to do with chastening when it is necessary.

God's rebuke and God's reproof is what all of the servants of God thirst and hunger for, because it is making us better people. Love is the redemptive force. I want oneness—but I want oneness with God. I don't want to be one with you, first, because you were not first in my life. There was no one in here first in my life, so I can't put anyone above God; not my mother, not my father, not my sister, my brother, my teacher, my Prophet. Allah (God) is First.

When I was conceived in the womb, my mother didn't even know it, but Allah (God) knew it and He was there. When I was alone in the womb as a clot forming, He was there and as I took form in that darkness—no eyes to see, no ears to hear, swimming like a fish in a bag of water—God was there.

I don't owe anybody anything above Allah. He is my Source; He is my Root; He is my Branch; He is my Everything. Jesus never told us to worship him. Jesus said, “God is a spirit and them that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” Christ never told his disciples worship him, but only to follow him. There is a big difference. If you follow him (Christ), you will worship Allah (God). If you follow Christ, you'll be one with him and one with his Father. Then how could we escape being one with one another, for in Christ there is no bond, no free, no Jew, no Greek, no male, no female. All are one in Him. To know the Christ is the critical axis upon which we all turn back to Allah (God). But there are a whole lot of false things going on, in the name of Christ.

Five hundred years ago, Christopher Columbus came in the name of Christ and killed all the natives. He not only set up his version of Christianity, but he set up White supremacy in the name of Jesus Christ. What we must do is clear away the garbage so we can see Christ in his essence. It is only in his function—not just his name—that he can become one with Him and one with his Father and one with one another.

I am a Muslim. That word “Muslim” only means one who believes in obeying Allah (God). Muslim is an Arabic word, so it's no wonder we don't know what it means. We are not Arabs, but we are not Greeks either. So if you say you are a Christian, this only means that you are one with God through the example of Jesus Christ. If you are a Hebrew, you are one with God through the example of the Prophets. The common thread between Muslim, Christian and Jew is our belief in God. If we just practice the principles, we will all be one.

Thank you for reading these words, as I greet you in peace: As-Salaam Alaikum.

The Final Call