The Exclusive w/ Ava Muhammad
Ebony S. Muhammad (EM): In the 23rd Chapter of Our Saviour Has Arrived, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad says, “The God of Righteousness Who Will Rule in the Hereafter Will Have an unlimited Rule and not a limited rule like the rule of Yakub. How Must the God of Righteousness Begin? What thought do you have of Him and His Beginning? He Makes All things new. The first way to bring about something new is to change the way of thinking of the people. When you have removed from the people the old mind and idea then you can insert new ideas into their minds. This is done by the old being attracted by a new way of teaching…a new school of learning to condition their minds to that thing that you are about to present to them that is altogether new and different from what they have been accustomed to.”
He further states,”He makes all things new. He teaches us that He Could Use nothing of the old world and that after the removal of the old world He is to Bring About the New World. Allah (God) Does Not Want the old god to think that He is weak in Wisdom and Knowledge and Power to Bring something altogether new without using their old wicked material.” (OSHA pg 122)
I would like to know from your expertise on the subject of male/female relationships, how do we bring about a new dynamic of family?
Ava Muhammad (AM): Yes ma’am. That is a beautiful excerpt. The thing that comes to my mind listening to you read is the paradigm shift. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad is telling us that Allah will not make use of the old, therefore, the Teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad cannot be used as a supplement to the current system of the white man’s world. I think that’s where we’re flawed, and I think that’s part of the transition that we’ve been trying to do, because of our bond and attachment to the Caucasian’s world; our natural inclination is to try to preserve it. We love it, we’re other than ourselves. There is a big part of us that does not want to let go of this world, because of our attraction to it.
What we have been doing with the Teachings as a people in the last 80 years or so is attempting to combine what we’re getting from the White man and then thinking that we can inject the Teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad; remove things that the slave master’s children don’t find appealing, the things they find too difficult and think that we can do it. What I’m hearing you read is that is not possible. Of course Minister Farrakhan is true to that in every sense of the word. Therefore, he calls for a complete paradigm shift, and we know paradigm is a model.
A shift is a move. One of the things that’s essential to the definition of that word is when you shift it’s always slight. It’s not a jump. A shift is a move in one direction or another, and in mathematics we know that a shift can completely transform a configuration. That’s what we’re being called to do.
In male/female relations we have to have an educational shift where young boys and girls are completely cleared of everything we’ve learned from the slave master and are fed a complete new vision of another world. I don’t want to say “fed” a vision, because we know education is a drawing out process, but we need to protect them from being injected with the old thought. They’re already born with the capacity to envision and bring in that New World. The Minister has taught us that every generation is born to solve the problem of its time, and our children are really of higher intelligence than us even though we know more than they do from experience. Since we know more than they do, it’s our duty to protect them.
I’ll say that the biggest thing that we need to do right now in order to restore the sanctity of marriage is to make people understand that marriage is actually mandatory to the building of a nation. You always have single people in a nation. Your pool of single people provide you with those who are available, because marriage is so consuming that you don’t have the availabilities. Therefore, every nation that is healthy has a pool of single people, but the adult world needs to be dominated by married couples. Our children need to be taught, at the earliest age possible, the ideal marriage. I’m a strong advocate of discussing it years before puberty. One of the problems we have is that we wait until the hormonal urges strike and we want to say, “Come here let’s talk about it”. It’s too late, because they’re ruled now by urge. They don’t hear it, because they are motivated by a desire for physical satisfaction. You want to get them, especially the girls, when they are as close to God as possible, which means the sooner they come out of the womb the better (laughing). You see, when they’re in the womb they’re with God, they’re with Allah. When they come out they’re total believers, they have complete faith and confidence, they don’t understand failure, they have high expectations, and they believe that all they need to do to desire a thing is say to it “Be” and it is. Therefore, you want to keep them in that frame of mind.
EM: Yes ma’am, thank you.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad also says that Allah can take what is already here and make it new. He says that it’s easy to reproduce something (from scratch) than it is to take what’s already made or created and make it into a new being.
AM: True.
EM: With the adults and the teenagers, those of us who are a little further away from the womb, how do we shift into that new way of thinking and into a new being when it comes to relationships because of our experiences?
AM: It’s definitely all about thought. Through thought we re-create. That’s why it’s difficult at a very early age the neurotransmitters in the brain get locked into pathways. Very, very quickly the human being becomes habitual. We’re taught to do something a certain way, and we start doing it over and over, and it doesn’t take long for it to lock in. Once habit locks in, it’s difficult to change it. However, and I think it was Neri who said this in the Godfather when they were talking about an assassination, “Difficult, but not impossible”. (Laughing) We have to kill those thoughts that are holding us down, and the way to do that is to focus in on the New thinking, allow New thought to come into the mind. For example, when the Minister is teaching us, because his thought pattern is on another plane above the one we currently occupy, in order to drink from what he is pouring, Allah made him and what he is bringing so desirable, that we are willing to suspend our current thought pattern just to get into what he is saying. What he is saying is so attractive, it’s fascinating, it’s desirable and it’s touching us in a place we haven’t been in a long time. It’s like a child going to Disney World, it’s just beyond excitement. It consumes you. Well, how do we stay like that? We have to take with us, not only what he says it’s the level that it’s on. Our battle is with the gravitational pull of self and this world where we operate on the lowest level, because it’s the easiest level; you don’t have to think. You have a natural urge to eat, you have a natural urge to mate, you have a natural urge to seek shelter…it’s not complicated. Thinking is complex. Yet, if we are going to bring it in we’re going to have to practice thinking above the world we’re in. He gives us a Study Guide called, “Rising Above Emotion Into the Thinking of God”.
EM: Thank you very much.
I would like to share some more with you. I think sometimes we make this New World abstract, and we may think that we’re not going to see it or that it’s farfetched. Therefore, we place ourselves to the side and say that our grandchildren will bring it in. However, we’re actively involved in it right now. It reminds me of what Brother Ishmael said the other week when we mentioned the Matrix. I see us living in something similar to what they call a “parallel universe”. Most people are oblivious to what we, in the Nation of Islam, are doing and the magnitude of what we are doing.
AM: Right, yes ma’am.
EM: Yet they see us all of the time. I believe that some of us are not seeing all of what we’re doing in its entirety as well. This is real, it’s tangible. What I’m hoping to do, with Allah’s help, is to give the readers who are and are not in the Mosque a snapshoot of this New World in a very real, concrete and simplified way as it relates to education, relationships and more and offer the right perspective, a righteous perspective, on what we need and how we’re bringing it in.
AM: Yes ma’am.
EM: We’re planting a seed so that when things really fall down completely, they’ll recount reading or hearing about this New World and where it can be found all over the Nation and learn more. They’ll know what to look for if they need to seek refuge. With the help of Allah, we can bring the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s words from this chapter and invite those who are experienced with subjects such as Agriculture and Mathematics…
AM: Yes, yes…
EM: …as well as Media, because we have the Final Call Newspaper that is uncompromised news and information! All of what is in his vision is right here! We are illustrating it today, and we are able to give our people mass.
AM: That’s beautiful, because as we know at least 85% of the people will never capture the vision unless they’re shown a model. The small group of people who have submitted themselves to at least try to comply with the discipline are called the Registered Muslim. We’re seeing the rudimentary level of the next person. Dr. Ridgely calls Minister Farrakhan “the next human being”. I love that, because that’s what he is. He is with us and among us, but he’s not us. However, through him we see it’s attainable. That’s what I see you’re doing. You’re showing this. Even the way Minister Farrakhan and Mother Khadijah live, they’re there and we see them but as you pointed out, we don’t seem to be digesting the reality that they are here as an example of what we’re expected to become.
We should have beautiful homes, we should have a beautiful marriage, our husband or wife should be our very best friend next to God. That’s when marriage will become dominant when we understand that. We really haven’t found our best friend until you find that other person. We run around her talking about “BFF” and we have no idea of what we’re talking about (laughs). Your friend is someone who has your back in your spiritual journey as well as your physical, financial, social, psychological…all of those journeys are just stair steps to the ultimate journey, which is the spiritual.
Even the little things that we’re striving to do, the Minister is so bent on the Salaam Restaurant opening up, and people are saying, “Well it’s in the hood and nobody’s going to come…”, well then you’re not capturing the vision at all, because that’s what we do, we take nothing and make it into something. What should we do, go on the North side and go on the Gold Coast where the slave master is and just push up and assimilate with an outgoing and dying world, or do we go in among the dead who we claim we have the mission of the Resurrection and do we shine a light in their eyes that’s so blinding that they have to get up? We can’t keep talking about McDonalds and Burger King…the Minister has been teaching hard on food… The Messenger said, “Don’t condemn and take away something from the people if you have nothing to replace it with.
Now we’re there, and through the Crescent Café we can give you a fish sandwich that’s tasty and that’s filling, but we’re not giving you a fish that is a scavenger or it’s imitation or it’s been laying around somewhere. We don’t bring things out of boxes and cans. Everything to the degree possible is fresh. Therefore, yes we will have for our people the burgers and that sort of thing, but we’ll be purchasing the beef. We’ll see the cow that it came from. We’ll know that this is not something someone swept off of the floor (laughs), we won’t do that. This is real beef that we grind in the restaurant, so until we can get you off of it we’re going to draw you over there and let you see the right food and affordable food, and take the navy bean so that you don’t just eat that one time in the restaurant then never again. This is something that you can make in your own home. We would rather you eat that than the pig. He, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, said that the pulse in that bean will help ward off the radiation that the Enemy has poured into our community. These are the real things.
I’ll close with this. Most of our people don’t care about theology. If you look at the White man’s world, neither do his people. We tend to devalue ourselves and our people and say they don’t understand and don’t get it. Neither do White people. President Obama exposed their limited mental capacity, and you see that they don’t know the Constitution of the United States of America; they don’t know the laws of their own country. All they know is that they’re White. What the leadership among them has done is just given them the lifestyle they want. They want the pickup truck and the flat screen T.V. from Wal-Mart and so they get that, but there’s a leadership component. The difference with us is we’re charged with the elevation of our people, but first we have to go through the step-stepping White man who shows us how he does business, “Don’t give them theology, give them the way of life”. We don’t have to teach that at the Salaam, it is that. When you come in there it’s gorgeous, it’s beautiful. You’re not going to be in their using profanity, you’re not going to be in there with leggings on and nothing over them. We’re not pushing the religion, but we’re saying that our restaurant has standards. They will want to come in. We’re going to start bringing entertainment. Oh it’s going to be the place to be (laughs).
EM: Yes ma’am!! I see it! I was so excited coming into town this weekend, because I was looking forward to dining at the Salaam, however, I just found out that it won’t be officially opening until the end of May or beginning of June (laughs).
AM: Awe, yes ma’am (laughs). I was so excited, last night, just to be in there. I said, “We’re back”! There is no doubt; we are sitting on the edge of Inglewood, which is probably the worst neighborhood on the Southside of Chicago. There may be pockets on the Westside, but it’s where our work is. So what are we going to do? We’re going to clean it up.
EM: When you mentioned the high standard the Salaam has, it definitely shows. During Saviours’ Day, I went upstairs to the ballroom for the first time. The atmosphere was immaculate and of fine dining. It’s as if we’re showing our people what they deserve.
AM: Yes! Yes!
EM: This is what they deserve. The Minister talks about how when we go into our neighborhoods you really don’t see any sit-down restaurants, you see only fast food diners. What we have to offer will attract our people on that principle.
AM: Yes ma’am.
EM: It’s the unalike, they will want to come.
AM: White people don’t do this intentionally. They hate to serve us. They need our money, so they have to come in, but they want us to feel as uncomfortable and inferior as possible. So the places that they come and sell us products and services that are always too small, they’re always outdated, they’re never state of the art. Whatever the current technology is, it’s not there. All of that is to send messages; you stand up the whole time you’re there and because we think like White people we treat each other the way they want to treat us. You go up to Harold’s Chicken, and they’re behind a bullet proof window, and you slide the money and they turn the slot that brings the bag around. Even in various convenience stores, there’s an Arab or Indian person who doesn’t speak English and gets angry at YOU, because they don’t speak your language, but they want that money. Therefore, what you’re saying is so key. The Minister’s sentiment is you can’t make our people want another world if you don’t show it to them.
EM: Yes ma’am, because this world is all that they know.
AM: Exactly. We always compare it to slavery. That’s the sin of the Negro leadership. They used to preach, “We’ve come a long way”. So instead of comparing our condition to what it should be we compare it to what it was. Miles Davis says, “Compared to what? We’ve come a long way… well yes it’s better than the slave ship, but is this the ultimate destination here?” Harold’s Chicken, is that the destination? Ma & Pa’s Smoked BBQ, is that the ultimate destination?
EM: Thank you so much for everything you shared!
AM: It was a pleasure. Thank you.
