The New Stewards of the Earth Part I

In the Gospel according to Matthew 5:5, it is written: “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” During his Saviours’ Day 2013 keynote address, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan reintroduced the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s Economic Blueprint for the purpose of ending poverty and want. Minister Farrakhan’s speech was multidimensional and multilayered in its construct. It was a clarion call for new stewards of the earth to come forth to save humanity from the economic, political, social, and ecological hell the ‘wicked husbandmen’ have created during the last 6,000 years.

 The Holy Qur’an 24:46 states: “We have indeed revealed clear messages. And Allah guides whom He pleases to the right way.” The Honorable Minister Farrakhan’s speech was multidimensional because it was both metaphysical and material. He called us to a “moral and ethical rebirth” in stewardship of our personal and collective environmental resources. He admonished us to “become human beings rather than beasts and serpents that are destroying human life from the womb to the tomb.” In his message, the Minister reintroduced us to the morality of thrift and savings versus uncontrolled spending and consumption. In Proverbs 15:5, it is written: “A fool despises his father's instruction: but he that regards reproof is prudent.” Minister Farrakhan’s Saviours’ Day keynote was also multilayered. He reminded us that building a multimillion dollar national economy requires each individual wage earner to commit to saving five cents a day, thirty-five cents a week, or eighteen dollars and twenty cents a year. A new collective macro-economic reality is built on a foundation of individual micro-economic discipline. Common sense is needed for these uncommon times in order to end poverty and want.

 

Allah (God) states in the Holy Qur’an 55: 5-9: “The sun and the moon follow a reckoning, and the herbs and the trees adore (Him), and the heaven, He raised it high, and He set up the measure, and keep up the balance with equity, nor fall short in the measure.” Mankind has indeed fallen short of the measure and has not been equitable. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan used the illustration of the human body to show us a “perfect distribution of wealth.” He said “Every system has its individual function and they work together for the common good of the whole.” The human body is not a capitalist system where a few organs own everything, but a socialist system that “makes every cell comfortable…and none of your organs react, because all are being fed what they need” declared the Minister at Saviours’ Day. Obviously capital is needed to acquire the means of production (land) necessary to end poverty and want; but the distribution of the wealth derived thereof will be according to the needs of the society. No man, woman, or child should go to bed hungry or be without education. No man, woman, or child should be naked, out of doors or without basic healthcare.

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For anyone who would attack Minister Farrakhan for stating that the human body and a just economic system is a socialist, be forewarned. For followers of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, socialist means “to advocate a society of men or groups of men for one common cause” not Marxism. Socialism did not originate with 19^th century European economic-philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In fact, in the Communist Manifesto and later writings, Marx and Engels criticized earlier 19^th century socialists Henri de Saint Simon, Charles Fourier, Robert Owen and others for a morality based “utopian socialism” that did not advocate the necessity of class struggle or political revolution to implement their ideas of equity and justice. These socialist believed that people of all classes might voluntarily adopt a societal plan if presented in a logical and convincing manner. What Minister Farrakhan presented on Saviours’ Day was so plain, even a fool could understand it.

 Marx and Engels’ “scientific socialism” - based on a materialist and physicalist world concept, the eventual struggle between the proletariat (working class) and bourgeoisie (owner class), abolition of all private property and state ownership thereof, industrial and scientific progress of modernity without regard for destruction of the environment, the critique of capitalism without acknowledging the transatlantic slave trade from 15^th to 19^th centuries that created modern European capital, and the rejection of Allah (God) and religion - is not what the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan is advocating. The Nation of Islam will not adopt an immoral, ahistorical, inequitable type of socialism imposed by force like that which eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In the Holy Qur’an 68:7-8, it is written: “Surely thy Lord knows best who is erring from His way, and He knows best those who go aright. So obey not the rejectors.” What Minister Farrakhan proposes is a new stewardship of the earth based on morality and equality. For him and we who follow his guidance, “equality means to be equal in everything,” particularly in reaping the benefits of one’s labor and sacrifice while not ignoring the needs of the less fortunate in society. For the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, “every human need is a human right.”  The poor, elderly, and disabled must be cared for.

Allah revealed to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in the Holy Qur’an 2:29 “He it is Who created for you all that is in the earth.”  The new stewards must care for every creature on Allah’s earth and the environment that sustains all life. For they understand Who is the real Owner of the earth. The new stewards of the earth don’t have to reject modernity, just immorality. Nor do they have to abandon private property, just the greed and lust for filthy lucre beyond their needs. The earth’s air, water, land, animals, vegetation, and people need a new righteous, loving steward that reflects Allah’s love.

Are we the meek that shall inherit the earth and become its new stewards? We certainly can be if we follow Allah’s guidance coming through the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and implement Muhammad’s Economic Blueprint to end poverty and want.