During the 1960s James Baldwin, a famous literary author and social commentator, once observed and questioned how a contemporary and great leader was
able to do what generations of welfare workers and committees and resolutions and reports and housing projects and playgrounds have failed to do: to heal and redeem drunkards and junkies, to convert people who have come out of prison and to keep them out, to make men chaste and women virtuous, and to invest both the male and the female with a pride and a serenity that hang about them like an unfailing light. He has done all these things, which our Christian church has spectacularly failed to do. [1]
The leader was the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
For over forty years Muhammad’s life was an expression of unflinching devotion to the improvement of the lives of African Americans.
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al-isrā’ wa’l- mi‘rāj (The Night Journey and Ascension)
Today, the 6th of June, corresponds to the 27th of Rajab (the seventh month of the Islamic lunar or hijrī calendar), a day recognized by Muslims generally as al-isrā’ wa’l-mi‘rāj, the Arabic name for the Night Journey and Ascension of Prophet Muḥammad (peace and blessings upon him), to the presence of Allāh (exalted is He). Muslim scholars differ on various aspects of the journey and the ascension. In essence, the event involved the Prophet’s journey from the Sacred Mosque (al-Ḥaram ash-Sharīf) in Makka (Mecca) to the Farthest Mosque (al-Masjid al-Aqsā) in Jerusalem, his meeting with Prophets Adam, Abraham, Moses and Jesus among others, and his descent and return the same night.
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