In a recent response to an article i posted on a prominent Buffalo Muslim da`i beheading his wife, i was directed to a website with an “Ask the Alim” section, http://www.islamonline.net was told that i would there find many fataawat denouncing violence against women and …
Since my early teenage years, I have been involved in various activist and social justice movements, from Food Not Bombs, to the Occupy Movement, and various anti-fascist organizations and action committees. In what follows, I will explain how my path in activist circles, and self-described …
The following article appears in the Nation of Islam paper The Final Call. You will find it quoted and linked below, followed by a brief fact-checking by your’s truly, only on the scientifically quantifiable claims which the author claims “Master Fard” – Wali Fard Muhammad – to have made. Believe it or not, but i actually mean NO disrespect to Nation of Islam or Master Fard for that matter. i admire both for a number of reasons, even while recognizing flaws with both.
i do, however, question – and completely doubt – that Wali Fard Muhammad’s statements about what was probably the notion of Wahdat al-Wujud were in fact the same as the anthropomorphism and theology of Divine incarnation as later expressed by the Nation of Islam that grew from his Allah Temple of Islam.
i do laud the man’s promotion of the very quest for knowledge amongst a community that had been ruthlessly subjugated. Flawed as his knowledge was, his heart was clearly in the right place with regards to this.
This fact-checking, however, is presented as empirical verification that whatever theological views you lean towards, there can be no doubt that this man was learning from science books of his day which, while a noble pursuit of knowledge, were wrong in a number of clear ways (as we would later discover), and that his knowledge did not come from godhood, as evidenced by the fact that he was wrong in almost all cases on scientific matters.
Those of you who do not know Master Fard Muhammad may think that we are in error for believing in Him as Mahdi. What I want you to do is to give Him a chance to tell you, through the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, what He revealed; then, you go and study it. If He (Fard Muhammad) lied, then, we can cast Him aside. But, if He told the truth, then you are going to have to reason with this man.
Master Fard Muhammad came among us and He taught us “Actual Facts.” That which is actual means it exists; it’s fact or real.
A fact is that which actually exists; it is reality; it is truth. Why did Master Fard Muhammad give us Actual Facts? It is because you cannot build anything until you know the actual facts. The problem with us is that we have believed what others have told us, but, the actual facts we may not be acquainted with. How could the enemy rule us if we had the same knowledge that he has? Regardless to your degrees, the enemy has never shared with you what he has of knowledge. That is why when you come out of college, you go to him and look for a job. It is because you are not prepared to make a job for yourself.
Master Fard Muhammad was only among us three years, and four or five months. He said He came to us from the Holy City of Mecca, in Arabia. Master Fard Muhammad came to Detroit to a place called “Black Bottom,” where the people lived in the deep ghetto. He started teaching there, going door-to-door like an ordinary salesman. This is what is meant in the scripture where it says, “He made himself of no reputation,” and, “became obedient even unto death.”
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan
The Bible teaches, “He stood and He measured the Earth.” In 1930, when Master Fard Muhammad came, He told us that, “The total area of the land and water of the planet Earth is 196,940,000 square miles.” He said, “The circumference of the planet Earth is 24,896 miles,” and, all of us had to memorize this. “The diameter of the earth is 7,926 miles; the area of land is 57,255,000 square miles; the area of water is 139,685,000 square miles.” He said “The Pacific Ocean covers 68,634,000 square miles and the Atlantic Ocean covers 41,321,000 square miles.”
“The Indian Ocean,” He said, “covers 29,430,000 square miles, and the lakes and rivers cover 1,000,000 square miles. The hills and the mountains cover 14,000,000 square miles; the islands are 1,910,000 square miles; and the deserts are 4,861,000 square miles. Mount Everest is 29,141 feet high, and the producing land is 29,000,000 square miles. The earth weighs 6 sextillion tons—a ‘6′ followed by 21 zeros—and is 93,000,000 miles from the sun, traveling at the rate of 1,037 1/3 miles per hour. Light travels at the rate of 186,000 miles per second, and sound travels at the rate of 1,120 feet per second. The diameter of the sun is 853,000 miles.”
We were just students under a Master Teacher who asked us to study. Then, Master Fard Muhammad began to tell us about the distance of the planets and the life that is on the planets. He taught Elijah Muhammad, who was from the cotton fields of Georgia, and, who only went to the fourth grade of school. If you compare what Master Fard Muhammad said in 1930 (now 79 years ago), with the dimensions that the scholars have given, every year they have gotten closer and closer, until now their computations are similar with Master Fard Muhammad’s. He is the man Who taught Elijah Muhammad, and came to raise us up from a dead level and make us rulers over those who once ruled us—not by guns and sticks, but by giving us a superior knowledge.
In 1930, before you knew anything about Mars, Master Fard Muhammad called Mars an “inhabited planet.” He said, “Mars is 141,500,000 miles from the sun, and she travels at the rate of 1,037 1/3 miles per hour.” He said, “Her diameter is 4,200 miles.” Master Fard Muhammad said, “Mercury is also an inhabited planet and is 36,000,000 miles from the sun. Her diameter is 3,000 miles and she travels at the rate of 1,037 1/3 miles per hour.” Think about that. No matter how close they are to the sun or how far they are from the sun, all of the planets travel at the same rate of speed.
Master Fard Muhammad said, “Jupiter is 483,000,000 miles from the sun. She takes eleven years and nine months to make one complete circle around the sun; her diameter is 88,700 miles; Saturn is 886,000,000 miles from the sun; Uranus, 1,782,000,000; Neptune, 2,793,000,000 miles from the sun; and the far planet Platoon, or Pluto, 4,600,000,000 miles from the sun.”
Pluto was first discovered in the year 1930, the same year that Master Fard Muhammad found you and me. How far is Pluto from the sun? Four billion, six hundred million (4,600,000,000) miles. In this figure, you have the numerals “4” and “6.”
The Book of Malachi, meaning, “My Messenger,” which is the last book of your Bible, tells us who we should be looking for: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” I will send you who? Elijah! In what chapter does his name appear? The 4th Chapter, verses 4-6.
Now, here is the meaning: The first “4” represents 4,000 years from Moses. Why Moses? Because both Bible and Qur’an teach us that the man that Allah (God) would send in the last days would be a man like unto Moses. How could you have a man like Moses unless you have a people like the Children of Israel, and, a wicked ruler like Pharaoh and his deceitful magicians? The second “4” represents our 400 years of bondage; and, the “6” represents the end of the 6,000-year rule of Caucasian people.
The far planet Platoon, or Pluto, is 4,600,000,000 miles away from the sun; yet, the light of the sun reaches her and has her spinning at the same speed of the other planets (1,037 and 1/3 miles per hour).
What does this mean? It means that when the Light of Allah (God) touches you, you will start turning and you will be going at the same speed of all the people of wisdom on the planet, as long as you stay in the light, acknowledge the light, submit to the light, bow down to the light and the God Who raised you and brought you to the light.
Master Fard Muhammad came and the authorities arrested Him in Detroit for teaching us the knowledge of ourselves. He submitted. He didn’t have to go to jail, that is why the Book of Habakkuk teaches, “He had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power.” The Book of Malachi teaches, “He became obedient even unto death.” “Death” here means the White man, because he represents death; and, we live in the very shadow of death under his rule.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that when the White man tricked our fathers out of Africa, the first slaves came to America on a ship named “Jesus.” When our fathers got here, they would wander down to the shore looking for that ship, and, they would say, “You can have all of this world, just give me Jesus, that ship that would return me to my native land and people.” That is where our spirituals were born. “Swing low, sweet chariot, coming to carry me home.” America isn’t your home. This is a strange land and we are living among a strange people whose ways are alien to Allah (God) and the Prophets of Allah (God).
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, “Little did our fathers know that it would be 400 years before the real ship Jesus came to get us.” The real ship Jesus is Allah (God) in Person; The Mahdi coming to raise a Messiah. The Messiah did not live 2,000 years ago. Jesus of 2,000 years ago was a prophet. The Messiah is more than a prophet. He is a man in whom is the Indwelling Spirit, Wisdom, Knowledge and Power of Allah (God), Himself. Therefore, He opens the eyes of the blind. He makes the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. He cleanses the leper and He raises the dead to life, by Allah’s (God’s) permission.
When Master Fard Muhammad went to jail, He sent for Elijah Muhammad. When Elijah saw Him behind bars, He looked at Elijah and said, “This is the price that you are going to have to pay if you want to free your people.” The price is jail. The price is persecution. The price is being evil spoken of. And, sometimes the price is death itself. Unless you are willing to pay the price, do not accept the assignment. Then He said to Elijah, “If you don’t accept the assignment, somebody else will. So why don’t you go ahead and get the big name.” The scriptures teach that Elijah said, “Here am I, send me.”
I did not know Master Fard Muhammad—I only saw His picture; but, I listened to Elijah Muhammad teach me something about Allah (God), the Original Man, and, how the Qur’an and Bible were actually made.
I want you to think: Either this is revelation, or, it is some made-up madness. But tell me: How could made-up madness raise a man from the dead? Tell me: How could made-up madness take a fool like me, and make me honored and respected all over the world? Tell me: How could made-up madness make Malcolm X? How could made-up madness make Muhammad Ali?
Let us reason together.
Fact-checking:
The Bible teaches, “He stood and He measured the Earth.” In 1930, when Master Fard Muhammad came, He told us that, “The total area of the land and water of the planet Earth is 196,940,000 square miles.”
196,900,000 sq miles
He said, “The circumference of the planet Earth is 24,896 miles,”
Close. 24,901 miles
and, all of us had to memorize this. “The diameter of the earth is 7,926 miles;
7,926.41 miles to be exact.
the area of land is 57,255,000 square miles;
57,500,000 sq mi
the area of water is 139,685,000 square miles.”
The oceans alone cover 141,600,000 sq mi.
He said “The Pacific Ocean covers 68,634,000 square miles
63,780,000 sq mi
and the Atlantic Ocean covers 41,321,000 square miles.”
41,105,000 sq mi
“The Indian Ocean,” He said, “covers 29,430,000 square miles,
28,400,000 sq mi
and the lakes and rivers cover 1,000,000 square miles.
False.
The hills and the mountains cover 14,000,000 square miles;
The “hills”? Does this include the hill in my back yard?
the islands are 1,910,000 square miles; and the deserts are 4,861,000 square miles.
False.
Mount Everest is 29,141 feet high,
and the producing land is 29,000,000 square miles. The earth weighs 6 sextillion tons—a ‘6′ followed by 21 zeros
Wrong: 6,585,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons
—and is 93,000,000 miles from the sun,
Close – 92,960,000 miles – but not close enough to be Allah in the flesh.
traveling at the rate of 1,037 1/3 miles per hour.
66,700 mph actually.
Light travels at the rate of 186,000 miles per second,
Right. Widely publicized, by the way.
and sound travels at the rate of 1,120 feet per second.
While in his day, this was often said to be at 1,126 feet per second, the speed of sound varies depending on where you are. It ranges from 590 to 620 mph for most air craft. The speed of sound at sea level is 761.207051 mph.
The diameter of the sun is 853,000 miles.”
Actually, 865,000 miles
In 1930, before you knew anything about Mars, Master Fard Muhammad called Mars an “inhabited planet.” He said, “Mars is 141,500,000 miles from the sun,
In Fard’s day, it was widely expressed that Mars is 141,500,000 miles from the Sun. Like all planets, however, this varies with a minimum of 128,000,000 miles and a max of 249,000,000.
and she travels at the rate of 1,037 1/3 miles per hour.”
Mars travels at an average of 53,979 miles per hour
He said, “Her diameter is 4,200 miles.”
The diameter of Mars is 6794.
Master Fard Muhammad said, “Mercury is also an inhabited planet and is 36,000,000 miles from the sun.
Mercury’s orbit is severely elliptical meaning that the planet’s distance to the Sun varies. At its closest, Mercury is 46 million kilometers (28.5 million miles or 0.31 AU) from the Sun. At its furthest, Mercury is 70 million kilometers (43 million miles or 0.46 AU) from the Sun, with an average of 58 million kilometers (36 million miles or 0.39 AU). It seems Master Fard had read a book that listed the average, not accounting for the fact that Mercury is only briefly at such a distance.
Her diameter is 3,000 miles
Close. 3,032 miles. Close, but not close enough for “Allah in the flesh.”
and she travels at the rate of 1,037 1/3 miles per hour.”
107,280 mph
Think about that. No matter how close they are to the sun or how far they are from the sun, all of the planets travel at the same rate of speed.
False.
Master Fard Muhammad said, “Jupiter is 483,000,000 miles from the sun.
Very close. Only off by half a million this time.
She takes eleven years and nine months to make one complete circle around the sun
More or less correct. Close enough, in other words.
; her diameter is 88,700 miles;
Exactly correct. For once.
Saturn is 886,000,000 miles from the sun;
Also varying, Saturn’s average distance from the Sun is 891,000,000 miles.
Uranus, 1,782,000,000;
Nope. 1,784,000,000 miles. Only 2 million off this time.
Neptune, 2,793,000,000 miles from the sun;
2,829,691,160 miles
The far planet Platoon, or Pluto, is 4,600,000,000 miles away from the sun; yet, the light of the sun reaches her and has her spinning at the same speed of the other planets (1,037 and 1/3 miles per hour).
3,670,050,000 miles away from the sun, with an average orbital speed of 10,438mph
Hopefully, this is been edifying and perhaps even a wake-up call. As the Torah teaches “God is not a man.”
In recent years, even months, there has been a radical shift in the direction of mainstream politics from the status quo of the past two decades. In the early 1990’s it was unimaginable to believe that the then Vice President would be leading the charge …
Imagine that one day someone passed a law that said, “As of last week, there can be no more laws passed!” This act itself would have to be considered an act of law if it was followed, and in so doing, it would contradict its …
The authorship of the Epistle to Yemen, ascribed to Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, commonly known as Maimonides, and also referred to by the acronym Rambam, has been the focal point of a new trend in S’fardic rabbis who can only be termed “Rambamists” proselytizing anti-Muslim views. When Maimonides’ own well documented responsa to Obadiah the Proselyte, clarifies that Islam is not idolatry, and that it is permissible for Jews to pray in mosques, the modern Rambamist will point to comments ascribed to Maimonides in the most problematic work associated with him. This short piece will set out to explain evidence we have that the authorship of the Risalat l’Yemen was pseudoepigraphical in nature, and not a historical letter penned by Maimonides, but ascribed to him later to give the opinion weight.
In “Moses Maimonides,” author Alan Davidson, writes of the contradictions within the Epistle:
The final section of the Epistle to Yemen deals with a self-styled Messiah who had recently appeared in Yemen. The Epistle explains to Jacob that the man in question was a demented soul and it outlines criteria for identifying a genuine Messiah. According to those criteria, the Messiah will be a prophet close to the level of the biblical prophet Moses and hence someone who excels in intellectual and ethical virtue; he will be completely unknown until he is revealed; he will first appear in Palestine; and he will establish his credentials through “sings and marvels.” God will bring about that all nations of the world will stand in awe of him.[1] The description raises additional problems. At the time when he wrote the Epistle to Yemen, Maimonides was working on his Mishneh Torah, and the Mishneh Torah flatly rejects the notion ‘that the Messiah will have to perform signs and marvels’ to establish his credentials: He will prove himself instead by enforcing observance of the Written and Oral Laws among Jews, conducting a successful war against the gentiles, rebuilding the Holy Temple, and gathering in the exiles. The section outlining criteria for identifying a genuine Messiah therefore looks suspicious.[2] If we reject it as spurious, we shall have to assume that an unknown person fabricated it and he or another party combined it with the authentic sections to piece together the Epistle as known today. The situation remains puzzling.[3]
Two fairly complete manuscripts of the Arabic text have been preserved, both written in Hebrew characters. Author Hebert Alan Davidson clarifies that “they differ from one another in several places, the most significant difference being Epistle to Yemen 98-102 dealing with false messiahs” and is the completion of the already problematic, albeit more physically consistent (in terms of manuscript consistency), messianic account.[4]
It is within this section which Davidson describes as the area of “the most significant difference,” that we find reference to the entiremeshuga` problem, as well as a somewhat problematic explanation of Muhammad couching the historical actions of Omar.
Perhaps Maimonides was the author of the Epistle and allowed himself to obfuscate the anti-Jewish persecution that he was dealing with. Perhaps he was acting out of character, twisted the rabbinic rules that he was applying, and went as far as blatantly to contradict himself… Perhaps. But the bottom line is that there are very strong, although maybe not conclusive, grounds for rejecting the authenticity of Maimonides’ authorship of the Epistle. There are no grounds for affirming his authorship apart from his being named as the author in manuscripts of one of the two Hebrew translations and by persons writing two centuries after his death. We have seen more than once that the attribution of a work to Maimonides in a manuscript commands little credibility… on that scenario, the unknown author fashioned the five sections with which he completed the Epistle mainly or wholly from Maimonides, while adjusting what he found there in order to serve his purposes.[5]
It is possible, even most logical, to suggest that this entire matter of Muhammad as ha’meshuga`, of the Daniel prophecy, of vitriolic plays on words such as pasul and qalon were fabricated by the same individual who inserted clearly anti-Maimonides qualifications for the Mashiach.
This is not so difficult to imagine in the context. No doubt, Maimonides is responsible for critiques therein of Arabist behavior against the Yemenite Jewish community. This, like the discussion of the Mashiach, would have been the springboard for a scribe’s hand to insert the views of Yemenite Jewish backlash (against all non-Jewish oppressors of the time, Christians in the Holy Land, and Muslims in Yemen and various places abroad).
The opinion is clearly more indicative of the latter than of anything we read from Maimonides elsewhere. This is something of an understatement to describe as controversial. Nevertheless, it is the most logical, the most neutral, academic and unemotionally invested way of looking at otherwise inexplicable contradictions within this isolated text. Furthermore, this is the only explanation that harmonizes with what we see playing out in the legacy of Maimonides’ progeny.
Virtually the only thing to be said with any confidence about the snarled situation is that the copy of the Epistle sent by Maimonides to the Yemenite Jewish community could not possibly have called Muhammad “madman,” or called the Quran “disgrace.”[6]
Nevertheless, such criticism and scathing accounts (real or fabricated), or specific issues with varieties of kalam should not distract us too much from the results borne out in the legacy of Maimonides, with regards to Judeo-Sufism. Neither should his criticism of Muslims in general lead us to imagine him as despondent from (let alone opposed to), Islaamic thought in specific manifestations (e.g. Mu`taziliyyah and Tasawwuf). To elaborate, one need not merely examine the pages of Maimonides’ works for Islaamic references, influences and corroboration, rather the true authentication of this position is to be found in the legacy of the Maimonides family.
For more information and a discussion on this topic, watch my video “Was the Epistle to Yemen actually written by Maimonides?” here.
[1] Epistle to Yemen 88-92; English translation [xvii]. For the Messiah’s prophetic gifts, see Mishneh Torah: H. Teshuba 9.2; cf. pp 492
[2] Mishneh Torah: H. Melakim 11:3-4. Shailat, Letters and Essays of Moses Maimonides pp. 157-8, Herein the struggles to harmonize the descriptions of the Messiah in the Epistle with the description in the Mishneh Torah expressed; cf. pp 492
[3] (Davidson, 1932) pp. 493
[4] Ibid. pp. 493
[5] Ibid pp. 509
[6] Ibid pp. 493
EXCLUSIVE! BREAKING NEWS! So while our family was in town to protest the Inauguration of Satan, Friday and Saturday, we went to the infamous and lovely Comet Ping Pong. You know, it’s the place that all the Alt-Right folks say is an underground child sex …