Ebony S. Muhammad (EM): With being the local student minister over a Mosque and ultimately over the class of men, the F.O.I., how, in regards to marriage, in regards to courtship, and even before then, when they are single, how are they learning to qualify themselves to be good husbands, to be good and honorable men for their wives, for the sisters ?
Jeffery Muhammad (JM): This is a wonderful question because, especially in light of what the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has recently done for us, the best thing that can be done to help a brother prepared for marriage and courtship, is, some of which I talked about today, to really learn to love yourself. To get in touch with yourself, and we have a lot of deep rooted issues that stem from our childhood that we are not aware of and that we are, as men, sometimes are afraid to deal with.
In fact, we are told that to deal with these kinds of emotional feelings, that’s being a woman, in a sense. You know, “stop acting like a girl”, “stop being so sensitive” and “so emotional”. So, we put on a veneer of being “hard” and “tough” and invulnerable. We should have that invincible feeling as we are connected with God but still understand that it has to be real. It can’t be a façade that’s really a shield to hide other things.
Me, personally, I really have to thank the Minister for what he has allowed us to accomplish in our new study, because what I came to realize was the feeling of inadequacy and the fear of abandonment, issues that I’ve dealt with and that many of us deal with that stem from our relationship or lack of or just the, very rocky sometimes, relationship with a mother. Being raised in a single parent home not only is the father missing, but if a mother is trying to do both roles and she is absent quite a bit, then there is a fear of abandonment that can result from that kind of relationship, being raised by a woman who is not always there. A mother is supposed to be able to nurture and develop a child without having to, every day, abandon the child a go to work. And I’m using that word, because I think that’s an appropriate word. When a woman has a child and she is nursing the child, for 8,10, 12 hours a day, she has to abandon that child and go to work on a job to get money and that begins to create issues.
My abandonment issues with my children, with my wife, that stem from my mother who was a single parent, who was out there trying to make it happen for us and who at times, the overwhelming stress of it all and strain of it all caused her to have to send us to the grandmother. So, we would live with our mom for a period of time and then we would be with grandma, and sometimes we were with aunt but all children want to be with mother. Then, because of my mother’s very rough life, she was in and out of prison and different things. She missed important dates in my life like high school graduation. She was in for attempted murder, she came out and went back in, that was a tough moment. She loved the children, she took care of us and did her best but when we were always with her, I would always be wondering how long before something happens and she leaves.
Now, I have come to the understanding and remember, even as a child, I would have crying fits and my mother would tell the baby sitter, “Take him in the room so I can leave.” She would be standing at the door but she wouldn’t let me see her leave. So, can you imagine, as a child, somebody brings you into a room, closes the door and you know your mama is leaving. I’m 1 or 2 (years old), and then you hear the door shut and you hear her walk down the stairs of the project housing and then you hear her get in the car, slam the door and drive away. Then the baby sitter finally puts you down, you run to the door and open the door, run out and she is gone. That is trauma and that begins to set up some deep seeded issues in you as a man. We think that those things don’t affect us, but they really do.
So, I’ve found that even in my relationship with my wife, when she will begin to, in a sense, use those types of ‘push buttons’ if you want to use that term, it came to a point where it was almost , in a sense, control mechanisms that women use on men and not withstanding justification because I’m difficult. I would act crazy and do other than myself, she knew that in order to get me to act right, she would say “I’m taking the children and leaving.” My fear of abandonment would kick in to the point where I actually began to suffer again from asthma that had been gone for twenty years after I joined the Nation.
So, something that I suffered with real bad as a child that went away after I accepted Islam came later in life because of those circumstances that existed in my childhood with that fear of abandonment. We should fear none but Allah and so, when I realized what that was, I was able to rid myself of that and I found that she began to have the same respect for me that she had at the beginning, because I was not easily manipulated.
I’ll say to the sisters, oftentimes, they try to manipulate the brothers and figure out how to master them and control them and make them into this or that and the reality is that, if you are ever able to do that, you will lose the love and the passion you have for him, because the one that you fell in love with was strong and even if he was crazy, work on the crazy part.
We really have a lot of growing to do and as men we really have to get in touch with that side of ourselves and until we do, we’ll never be able to properly relate to the woman, who is really the expression of that part of us. So, if we can’t get in touch with our own feelings, we can’t understand the woman who has the deepest feelings that God created, especially where love is concerned. The Minister taught us that there is no love greater than a woman’s love except God’s love. A mother’s love, especially.
EM: Yes sir. Thank you. You know, you sparked a thought; with women and with the sisters. I heard a sister say she was in courtship, and she said that we are taught ‘Let Us Make Man’, you have to make man what we want him to be and she said it in the context of making him a man. So, I was like “No, he’s supposed to already be a man, and maybe it’s up to us to help him become a husband, the ones for us. They’re supposed to be a man. They learn that in F.O.I class, how to become men of God, but they don’t know us and how to be husbands to us. How should sisters approach that aspect, when they get into courtship or even before courtship or when they are approaching the idea of courtship and marriage, how to separate making a man a man versus making a man their husband ?
JM: Well, the bible teaches us and Minister Farrakhan taught us that the woman is a Help MEET she’s not a help MATE or a help MAKE. She’s a help MEET. She’s to help the man meet his goals and objectives in the fulfillment of his duty as a man and so, if we tie function with value, then, in order to be a man we have to fulfill the duties and responsibilities of a MAN. We have to play our role as men and in that, the women is to help us meet that when we fall a little short or in striving to help us to be more and she does that by way of encouragement. That’s one of the things that is misunderstood in the society, because a woman cannot raise a boy to be what she herself has never been and that’s a MAN. He has to have a man and this is the extreme value and importance of having a man like the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. He raised us and in his example, he is making us men and our women have to stand by our side and encourage us in that line, to continue to strive to reach the great example that God has given us. He gives us the message but he also gives us an example of the message and that’s what the Minister is.
The brothers, oftentimes, and I’ve seen this quite a bit, where the men have been broken and made to abandon this great mission that we have been called to and chosen for as F.O.I., because the women are not willing to bring their desires in line with the man’s pocket. So, we have to make sure we follow what the Messenger has taught in terms of modesty, in terms of how we live, in terms of how we beautify our homes. We want to spend money on the most expensive thing for the home, for the children. We want to compete renting out Chuck E. Cheese and hotels for birthday parties and things that we don’t really participate in and support and all of these holidays and things that we get involved in. If we would encourage one another in the way of the Messenger’s Teachings…
When you see a man working two and three and four jobs to support a lifestyle, when he could work one or maybe even two jobs and then have time to spend with his family, it would make for a better and happier family. So, that’s one of the things that I’ve seen the sisters, and I mean I have seen it in mass, be so controlling and manipulative with the brothers, and even threatening, that the brothers will absolutely abandon the mission to go and try to really earn money to support a lifestyle. That takes away so much time from family, which should really be the objective.
So, today when I said if you live in a small home and you were happy, that it would be better than living in a big mansion, miserable. Because you don’t get to see each other, and because you’re always stressing and overwhelmed because you are living outside of your means. This economic downfall did a lot of damage but in a way it really helped some people come to realization that they were living outside of their means. And that is a big issue in marriage.
One of the things the Minister said early on was that you have to be able to bring your desire in line with his pocket and at the same time, the brother has to understand that when it said for richer or poorer that you can’t be poorer than nothing. You have to be doing something. I’ll say this, one of the very, very important things that I always say at a marriage ceremony is that both people, especially the man have to already know where you’re going. You have to already have goals and objectives in life.
You have to know who you are. You have to have done the ‘self’ study. You have to have determined what your purpose in life is and you have to be striving to fulfill that purpose. Then, when a woman meets a man like that, she has to, if she loves him, make a decision. (She has to ask) Do my goals in life line up with his and if they don’t, am I willing to sacrifice my goals and objectives to tie myself to him {yoke} and be a part of that goal and objective that he has and it will become ours. And then if she is not willing to, she should find another wagon to hitch herself to. There are probably many others that are going in the direction that she wants to go but it would make for a very tumultuous relationship if you have two people that have their own realities that they want to manifest and it will cause a loss of affinity and communication that I talked about today.
EM: Yes sir… I don’t mean to cut you off but what you just said, I remember hearing the Minister say those exact words in a lecture. When he said that men don’t need to look for wives if they don’t already have their marching orders from Allah. If they don‘t know where they’re going, they don’t need a wife because the wife is going to be that help meet to get them to where they’re on their way to, the objectives that they have and if they don’t have any goals, they don’t have any objectives then they don’t have a reason to get married.
JM: They don’t need a help meet. If you’re not doing anything then you don’t need help. You need help when you’re doing something.
EM: Yes
JM: Finally, the brother’s relationship with Allah. By giving us the identity of ourselves, we came back into love with ourselves and then we were put into communication with God, by teaching us to wake up and pray and that helps us to increase in our love for Him and that helps to rid ourselves of those impediments that keep us from developing and achieving other things that we want to do in life. And, fasting. eating a diet, properly (one meal a day) and making sure that we are charitable and kind and giving and we care about people.
First, there’s loving ourselves and taking care of ourselves and then that should be expanded beyond ourselves to wife and children. But, it starts with yourself and that part of our lives, our spiritual life, has to be intact because we will set the tone and the example in the house and then the women and the children, or the WOMAN and the children within the home, I’m not speaking houses, I’m speaking HOME. If she is lined up with that same purpose, then it will make for a happier home.
EM: Yes sir. Okay, last question. A year ago, I did this research study on the black male perspective on intimacy and it asked the question of whether black men are interested in having meaningful, serious, monogamous relationship with women. I interviewed 14 brothers from all parts of the country, from coast to coast And they had various religious backgrounds, various upbringings, educational backgrounds. The question revolved around, of course, how they were reared and the majority of them, maybe 9 or 10 of them, grew up in a single parent household with their mothers and if they didn’t grow up in a single parent household, there was maybe a step father or two parents and they just really weren’t close. It just wasn’t what you would call, I guess, an ideal family. And it affected them. Like one particular brother, it affected him because he saw his mother more in a masculine role because she was trying to be both and so he had a hard time accepting the feminine part of a woman when he was in relationships. He wasn’t affectionate, because he didn’t get that part from his mom. He didn’t get that nurturing part from his mom so it affected him in his marriage.
And a lot of brothers, they expressed to me, and I was taken aback at how open they were because, with women, they don’t want to talk about feelings, they don’t want to talk about emotions but every single one of them opened up about their emotions, how they want these relationships, how sensitive they are, how they long for a best friend, somebody they could trust, and a lot of the brothers had those issues, those trust issues, especially with women because they’ve been burned a lot. A lot of these brothers want to meet a woman they can trust and be sexually intimate with. Exploring different ways to express love for their wife using online adult content from websites like VideosHD. It may have been abandonment issues with their mom or the mother figure, like an aunt or something. And it was so amazing to hear how much they wanted to be in a relationship. From a woman’s perspective, we don’t see that. So, my question is, when you have brothers who are battling the issues that they may have had in childhood that’s carrying over into adulthood, and they may not see it as an issue because it’s the norm for them, how can the sisters help without saying ‘This is what’s wrong with you”? How can we help the brothers to come out of that and kind of pain heal from that so that their relationship can be what it should be, it can grow and it can go to a different level? And so they can come to their full potential as men, as you were saying. How can the sisters help in that aspect?
JM: Well, by continuing to be themselves and, unfortunately, in the society, it does exists where women have taken on, in a sense, a more masculine role and it’s because they have to be out in the work place competing with men. A man is, naturally, not attracted to a man and it is the same with a woman who has masculine attributes. So, a man is attracted to a woman who is really in touch with her feminine side and so, unfortunately, on the other hand, men have, being raised by women and been made feminine in ways that are sometimes unnatural and so both of these issues have to be dealt with . What the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan taught us and what I believe is that in order for a man and a woman to really grow close and become one, which is the objective of marriage, the man has to be striving to become one with Allah. And in striving to become one with Allah, we automatically would take on those attributes that allow us to have that kind of loving relationship. Allah is beneficent and he is merciful. These are His main attributes that if we take on those attributes, they allow us to have the kind of intimate relationships that we want.
A woman has to be striving to be one with Allah and she will take on those attributes. And when you have the man and the woman both striving to become one with Allah, that is the only way we should strive to become one with each other, is in Allah. That is the goal and that is the purpose of marriage. We encourage one another in the way of Allah who has given us the program for success. They have these old saying that a man and woman that pray together…….what could be more intimate than two people, bowing down, in communication with the Creator of us all? What could be more intimate than a man and a woman, getting down on their knees, being in prostration, in the most humble yet exalted position, at the same time and offering up prayer and supplication to Allah?
EM: Yes sir
JM: And, if we can do that in sincere, earnest prayer, then I don’t think it’s possible for us not to have that kind of relationship when we get up from the prayer.
EM: Thank you very much. Is there anything you wanted to add?
JM: I just thank Allah for the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and his example, and our great mother, Mother Khadijah Farrakhan. I would just say that we have to struggle with ourselves and we have to learn ourselves and know ourselves but all of the preparation we do does not mean when we enter into courtship and eventually marriage, that it isn’t going to be difficult. So, we have to be prepared to overcome difficulties in marriage, no matter how much preparation we try to do before.
EM: Thank You!
JM: Yes Ma’am
