One on One with Jason Muhammad
Ebony S. Muhammad (EM): As the Assistant Director of MUI, how have you or how do you see yourself implementing a new way of facilitating education without utilizing anything of this world’s school system?
Jason Muhammad (JM): I believe the basis for “new” would be a new idea. Of course everything that we see in the material or what we see tangible comes from an idea; from the couch that your’re sitting on to the fish tank. It’s a gradual process. It’s a protracted struggle, as Minister Farrakhan has said before. Of course the fullness of the new will take a protracted period of time. We know that when Minister Farrakhan goes to the Father, when he departs, we know that there’s another book coming, and in that book is light upon light. That book has been kept secret, because we can’t allow the Enemy, who is on his way out, to even get a hint of what’s in that book, because that could extend his time and we definitely don’t want that. Sometimes it can be very difficult to get an idea, because even the Bible says, “…not even the eye has seen, nor ear…nor has it entered into the heart of man,“ so that new that we get little hints of, and just as you said is very abstract, we get a glimpse of it when we are in complete submission to what Allah has already given us as a wake up message. Just think about it. We could have such a wonderful community, wonderful nation with just what he has given us to get out of the bed or out of the mud.
We have been instructed, by Minister Farrakhan, to go back to the Lessons. That’s new. Sometimes in the Nation, we read and go over it and think that it’s old, but we haven’t even gone deep enough. It’s so new, and our ability to go into it has to deepen. This is why when the Minister goes into it and he opens up something else, by the grace of Allah, it’s like fireworks! He is able to see something new, another layer, and there’s so many layers from Message to the Blackman to Our Saviour Has Arrived and all of the books, and I think that we have to always ask Allah for guidance and be really good students so that we can be blessed to see something new to further it. Not that we are expanding it, but Allah is helping us to see a deeper level, because there’s so much in it.
Your question derives from my favorite chapter of Our Saviour Has Arrived, and it deals with education. He would not train us according to the way of prophets and servants but according to the way gods think. That’s the new paradigm. Master Fard Muhammad came to make us all into gods and a Nation of gods. That means that the Wisdom He brings to us is God Knowledge, and that’s our base, Supreme Wisdom. That in itself, as the Minister has instructed us and has told us many times, is really the base of our study in our educational institution. This is not school. This is an institution. We are not, of course, where we are going to be, yet, if we follow those instructions, stick to our Lessons and from that comes our courses of study, then we can begin that journey that we may not see the completion, but we will be a stepping stone in what Allah had in mind in regards to setting up an educational institution for our people and for humanity.
EM: Can you break down the difference, that you see, between a school and an institution?
JM: Let’s clear the word institution. According to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, the word institution is defined as a significant and persistent element (as a practice, a relationship, and organization) in the life of a culture that centers on a fundamental human need, activity, value, occupies an enduring and cardinal position within a society, and is usually maintained and stabilized through social regulatory agencies.
Something that is institutionalized lasts for a long time. When you think of modern schooling, in the sense of Western education, it is just a training to fit into an already existing paradigm; to be a slave. You have bell systems and various class periods. This is really to make factory workers; that’s the root of it. Although they, White supremacist, have institutionalized these ideas throughout their educational system, the Minister says that eventually those beliefs and attitudes harden and they’re backed up by law and institutions, that’s this world that we live in. It’s in government, economics, law and so on.
Sometimes we cheapen our institution by calling it a school, but it’s bigger than a school. It’s not an individual house of learning but it is to be institutionalized and organized in a way that it can be carried; the same idea with the same results no matter where we are on the planet Earth. Therefore, if we institutionalize the Supreme Wisdom, the base of our educational system, then what we should produce from that is the mind of Master Fard Muhammad, which His star student, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, was produced, cultivated and trained into godhood. We have to continue going through this development and purification so that we can produce in a short amount of time that which Master Fard Muhammad was able to do in three and a half years.
We’re on a journey. I tell the teachers. “Don’t ever think that Allah is not aware of His personal University”. He’s always aware. That’s why whenever the Minister gives us wisdom it’s always on time. It’s Allah guiding him. It’s the Hon. Elijah Muhammad guiding him for the benefit of all of us. We just have to know line up perfectly with him, follow and work out and help him to help ourselves.
EM: You reminded me of what the Minister shared with the students during his recent college tour when he talked about their length of time being in school in comparison to the time the Hon. Elijah Muhammad when he was taught by Master Fard Muhammad and how little we leave knowing from those so-called institutions for higher learning. He also mentioned the language our children use, as well as the adults, such as the word “dog” when referring to one another and backwards it spells “god”. When you spoke about the conditioning of a school, you made me think of the experiment with the dog and the bell, the Pavlov experiment. Every time the bell would ring the dog would salivate due to the conditioning process.
JM: Yes ma’am. You have your lunch break, your recess, your manager is the teacher… It’s factory work. Of course you have to have a level of discipline, but the aim of the enemy is totally different.
At the last Educational Conference back in August of 2011, I remember the Minister presented a charge. I don’t want to misquote him, it was to the affect of “Pretend like none of this world’s educational system exists, what would you do”? Just pretend that it doesn’t exist, and sit back and watch what happens. That’s difficult for us. Of course we’re borrowing certain ideas and you’re trying to grow in these new ideas so that when you explaining and teaching it it’s proper. We’re in this transition that can be dangerous, but at the same time, I guess, dangerously beautiful (laughs). You can see Allah’s hand in it, and He’s so gentle in the way He moves us out of an old way, because the immediate shock of it would really hurt a lot of us. Therefore, He gradually takes us into different phases of development and nature bears witness to it as well.
We’re new to this. Just think of what Jesus said if we’re looking at it from the framework of the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, “There’s much I can tell you, but you can’t bear it”. Look at the wisdom that he shared from Master Fard Muhammad. It would literally blow some of our minds. You have to have the basic knowledge to even be able to deal with the higher knowledge. Everybody wants to know what’s out in the universe, what’s on this planet over here… first start with yourself. What’s going on with you? There’s so much that he could share with us and will share with us. We know some of the Teachings as it relates to what will happen at a certain period of time and being taught by the Scientists of Islam and all of these things that will happen. Those are really exciting things and everyone wants to be in that number, but right now we have to qualify for that. They’re not going to be playing around talking about “sit up in your seat” (laughs). These are serious human beings and the wisdom that we have is serious. Now we have to grow in the seriousness as students and Minister Farrakhan is the example of a very serious student, constantly reading different books and constantly traveling. It’s one thing to be in a book… Someone once said that poor children travel by way of the library. We never leave our block. However great men like Minister Farrakhan travel. That’s education. As you mentioned the time frame that the Master took with the Hon. Elijah Muhammad to train him shows, of course, His mastery and that He is a Master in what He produced of Him. We have to get that way. That’s why we’re taught to train them up quick.
Another point with education is the importance of the time and what’s required for the next stage of development. Now we have the Minister encouraging us to get into land development and agriculture. In our institution we have to deal with that. We need to have these type of programs where students are trained up in this manner because in a few days there won’t be food on the shelves. That’s why we’re blessed to have the hoop house and we have the garden here. The students have taken a liking to it and they have become very proficient. They actually run it. They’re growing huge watermelon and squash, corn and navy beans and they’re doing all of this themselves. They just came up with an idea for an irrigation system. Now that’s education! When you learn something you can do something.
EM: Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and offering a unique perspective on a new form of education.
JM: All praise is due to Allah.
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