“And turn not thy face away from people in contempt, nor go about in the land exultingly. Surely Allah loves not any self-conceited boaster.”
“And pursue the right course in thy going about and lower thy voice. Surely the most hateful of voices is braying of asses.”
“See you not that Allah has made subservient to you whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth, and granted to you His favours complete outwardly and inwardly? And among men is he who disputes concerning Allah without knowledge or guidance or a Book giving light.” (Holy Qur’an 31:18-20)
I was inspired to start this post with these three verses from the Holy Qur’an because I found in these words guidance for many of us to refine and correct our mode of speech when communicating with one another. The Southern slur and the slang pronunciation of words expressed mainly in urban cities, whether in the south or in the north, can be likened to the braying of an ass. Also, when we are emotionally disturbed and are going through moments of discontent, dissatisfaction and anger, likewise we phonetically display the sound of a braying ass.
Braying is defined as “The loud, harsh cry of a donkey or mule.”; “A sound, voice, or laugh resembling the cry of a donkey or mule.” (Lexico dot com Powered by Oxford). We are a people marred by the effects of chattel slavery that was the social system of this country dominated by white supremacy that wrote in the Constitution of this country defining our people as three-fifths of a human being. As such, we were not allowed to learn how to read or write; two most distinguishing characteristics of human beings which separate us qualitatively from animals, especially a donkey or an ass. Racism, in the most negative sense of the term, is witnessed in many subtle ways today in movies. One that comes to my mind immediately is how the voice of Eddie Murphy is superimposed on a donkey depicted in the movies of the Shrek series. While we laugh at the different characters displayed in this animation, each one of them depict the phonetic expressions and personalities of all of us in our morally fallen state. There is the female bartender with the voice of a man and the gingerbread character with the high pitch, whiny voice. No, I’m not trying to steal your fun. However, in the study of a conscious man who is striving to be Muslim under the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the guidance of the Holy Qur’an, I have become very conscious of not doing or exhibiting expressions that displease ALLAH (God).
In the Holy Qur’an, the 96th Surah (Chapter) ALLAH commands Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) to read, even though he could not read written text. However, it was not written text that ALLAH was commanding him to read. Instead, in this instance, it was Revelation that ALLAH was inspiring the Prophet with. To educate means to guide and the Bible says “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…” (KJV Hosea 4:6). The absence of knowledge and the practice of reading dumbs down our mental intelligence. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan teaches us that mental intelligence has no limit! In fact, the capacity of the human mind is infinite.
The intellectual feeding of our minds is critical to our display of culture. We almost know where someone is from by how they talk and we know the quality of a person’s upbringing by how they behave. When we suffer low self-esteem, which remember is rooted in no self knowledge, history shows that pride is developed in how we are and do what we do regardless of whether it is right or wrong. Hence, many of us say “we do what we do” without consideration of the quality and effect of what it is that we do to ourselves and with others that may in fact stifle the maturation process. In the Supreme Wisdom given to us in the Nation of Islam, we are taught that “Civilize means to teach the knowledge and wisdom of the human family of the planet Earth.” This is precisely the key in the Message of Resurrection that has transformed our lives under the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, who only went to the third grade, learning the basic rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic, before having to come out of school to work the cotton fields of Georgia.
Because of the upbringing and social conditions of my father, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, we cannot give credit to any educational institution of the white man’s world for the Divine Wisdom that he demonstrated by effecting an entire nation of Black people and oppressed people throughout the known world by “doing for self”. He said that he met God in the Person of a Man, Master Fard Muhammad, who taught him for three years and 4-5 months, day and night, and then commissioned him to teach, primarily all of us who were yet coming up out of the condition of slavery, not just physically but mentally under white supremacy, but inclusive of all oppressed people around the globe regardless of their creed, class or color.
Until our next post, let’s practice being more conscious of what we say and how we say what we say in an effort to please ALLAH (God) through each other. A braying ass, as mentioned in the Holy Qur’an in Surah 31 Verse 19, and the term ‘braying’ should be studied as it describes the condition of that beast of burden. To Be Continued… 😇