By Bro. Demetric Muhammad
[excerpted from Top 10 Myths About the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan]
The Minister called Judaism a “gutter religion”
False: Father Michael Pfleger defends Minister Farrakhan against this myth. “He has–first of all; he has not called Judaism a gutter religion of blood suckers. That is not what he has said because I have heard that talk. I stick up for Louis Farrakhan because he is another person that the media has chosen to define how they want to do it. And they demonize how they want to demonize somebody. I know the man, Louis Farrakhan. He is a great man.”
Orthodox Jewish Group Neturei Karta also defends Minister Farrakhan against this myth: “The media widely reported that the Minister had referred to Judaism as a ‘gutter religion.’ This error (or distortion) was deeply troubling to the Nation of Islam. The reason was that in Minister Farrakhan’s vocabulary the phrase ‘dirty religion’ has a particular meaning. It referred to adherents of a faith who sinned against the tenets of that faith. The ‘dirty religion’ is the distorted faith which emerges from its manipulation by hypocrites or sinners. The use of ‘dirty religion’ in the Minister’s lexicon could have been discovered by any researcher interested in generating light instead of heat.”
The Minister is homo-phobic
False: These are Minister Farrakhan’s exact words regarding the LGBTQ community: "I love my people who are lesbian, homosexual, transgender. Don’t make no difference, I love you. But I have to teach you that which will make us more pleasing in the sight of God because his wrath now is coming down on America and on the world. And if you’re not on the right side, you will receive a terrible chastisement."
The Minister is sexist
False: Minister Louis Farrakhan made history with the unprecedented appointment of Minister Ava Muhammad as the Southern Regional Minister and Minister of Muhammad Mosque No. 15. Minister Farrakhan installed Sister Ava Muhammad before a capacity crowd July 28, 1998, at the Hillside Chapel Truth Center in Atlanta, Ga. During Minister Ava’s installation service, the Minister commented: “Beloved brothers and sisters, today is an historic day. It is fitting and proper that I come to this holy place with the Reverend (Dr.) Barbara L. King to officially install the first female minister of a mosque in the history of Islam.”
The Minister is not a “real Muslim”
False: At the 1997 International Islamic Conference Minister Farrakhan was honored by distinguished Muslim scholars and imams from around the world and identified by them as their inspirational leader, proclaiming:
“In the Name of Allah (swt), the Most Merciful, the Most Beneficent, blessed are you and blessed is this conference. In the symbol of the leadership and the knowledge of the Qur’an, we signify that, symbolize that by putting this cap on the head of our leader, Brother Louis Farrakhan because the scholars and the knowledgeable are the people who are the inheritors of the Prophets of Allah (swt). And to signify that we have put that on his head in order to show our appreciation and to show that he is knowledgeable and will lead the Islamic Nation, inshallah, with his inspiration.”
The Minister killed Malcolm X
False: There is no statute of limitations on murder. If the Minister was responsible for the death of Malcolm X, he would certainly have been arrested by now, especially when you consider the animosity that the powerful Jewish community and the United States federal government has against him.
The only admitted killer is Talmadge Hayer, and he named 5 men who were involved in Malcolm’s assassination and none of them was Minister Farrakhan. He also exonerated 2 other Muslim brothers who were members of Temple No.7; they were arrested and unjustly imprisoned despite all witnesses testifying that they were not even present at the Audubon ball-room the day Malcolm X was assassinated.
J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI take credit for the assassination and point to it as a successful model for neutralizing dissident groups and leaders. Jim Vander Waal and Ward Churchill write of a damning FBI internal memo that they uncovered. According to these authors in their highly recommended book The COINTELPRO Papers: “By the point of Malcolm’s assassination during a speech in Harlem on the night of February 14, 1965, the FBI had compiled at least 2,300 pages of material on the victim in just one of its files on him, the NOI and the OAAU. Malcolm X was supposedly murdered by former colleagues in the NOI as a result of the faction-fighting which had led to his splitting away from that movement and their “natural wrath at his establishment of a competing entity. However, as the accompanying January 22, 1969 memo from the SAC (special agent in charge), Chicago, to the Director makes clear; the NOI factionalism at issue didn’t “just happen.” Rather, it had “been developed” by deliberate Bureau actions – through infiltration and the “sparking of acrimonious debates within the organization,” rumor-mongering, and other tactics designed to foster internal disputes – which were always the standard fare of COINTELPRO. The Chicago SAC, Marlin Johnson, who would shortly oversee the assassinations of Illinois Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, makes it quite obvious that he views the murder of Malcolm X as something of a model for “successful” counterintelligence operations.”
(Demetric Muhammad is a member of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan's Research Team. He is also a Nation of Islam student minister and works professionally as an Islamic Chaplain. He is the author of 7 books. His most recent publication entitledHail Elijahis the first definitive examination and documentation of the widespread and significant impact of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad on a host of famous men and women throughout America and the world. Such a volume aims to foil continued attempt to marginalize and minimize the Nation of Islam leader's influence and contributions. For more information, visit www.researchminister.com)