Estimated reading time: 12 minute(s)
ByThe Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan
[Final Call Newspaper Editor’s note: The following article contains edited excerpts of the divine message of life and love the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan delivered as part of the Janazah Service for his beloved Brother, Mentor and Friend, Brother Minister Jabril Muhammad, on Sunday, July 30, 2023, at Mosque Maryam in Chicago, Illinois. To view this powerful and inciteful prayer service in its entirety so that you can experience just how important this man from Allah (God) is to a grateful Nation of Islam, please visit media.noi.org.]
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, The Lord of all the worlds, The Creator, The Giver of life, and The Ultimate Cause of death. We thank Allah for His merciful intervention in our affairs in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, to Whom praise is due forever;
The Great Mahdi, or Guide, Who was to come, and has come, and made His appearance among an unloved, unwanted people inside America, and chose a people like us who had no knowledge of self nor their origin in the world.
Master Fard Muhammad chose us to be His people, and He declared Himself to be our God. He came… He came to set us free indeed. He came to make us into Himself: A Nation of Gods, bowing down to none or no one but Allah, The Creator of the heavens and the earth—who have no equal, no associates! And if you are associated with Him, it is because He commanded it. Oh brothers and sisters, I thank Allah so much for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad!
‘My particular Angel, Jabril’
My dear brother, Jabril… Those who spoke today reading a brief summary of his great life and work: you could never summarize his life in a little pamphlet like this (obituary). You will love him more as you know him more! You will love him more as you learn more about who Jabril Muhammad is. Not only who Jabril Muhammad is with the Nation of Islam, but who he is with Allah, and who directed him in the marvelous way that his life was fashioned.
In the Janazah Service of Muslims, we don’t do eulogies, and we don’t sing sad songs or do a lot of sad music. We don’t do preaching. But not today! I want to talk about this unusual human being. Both of us born in The Bronx, New York, in the same hospital. Think about that! Morrisania Hospital in The Bronx, New York.
Both my brother and myself, we had a deep love for God, and love for our people, and a great desire to see our people free, justified and equal before the entire world. Both of our young years, we were in New York; however, my mother took us to Bermuda, and then to Boston, Massachusetts, where I went to school, while my brother, Jabril, was in New York going to school.
And then one day, Brother Jabril met Brother Malcolm. (It’s not a coincidence that one day I met the same man, Malcolm X.) Both of us were so positively affected by our meeting with Brother Malcolm. When I first heard him, I had already heard the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. I took out my Form, and wrote a Letter to get rid of a slave name.
But, like in all things, the enemy is always trying to make it more difficult than it should be: I never got an answer to my Letter. So, I went to New York where I began a little work in show business, and there I went to the Temple, like my brother Jabril.
The Temple was a beautiful place for him, and me, and many (some of whom are right here in this room) that were nurtured into a totally new way of thinking, new way of acting, new way of life, with a new Teaching from a new Teacher, the Most Honorable and Honored Elijah Muhammad.
I want to talk about why I gave my brother the very beautiful name “Jabril.” He didn’t want Ji-bril. He said, “I will accept it, but you’ve gotta give it an ‘a’ (Ja-bril).” Now, you’ve gotta ask him: “How did you know the day, the month, the year, that Elijah Muhammad would leave from among us on the heels of a death plot?” Only he knows. And when something like that happens, and a man comes up right, who would you give the credit to?
See, sometimes we have knowledge implanted in us, given to us, shared with us by Allah through angelic forces. I called him “Jabril” because to me he was an Angel. And he was my particular Angel that God sent after me to bring me back to myself and to God!
In life, you meet many people who you call your “friends.” When I met Brother Jabril, he put capital letters on the word FRIEND. He put capital words on the name BROTHER. He had an Assignment.
