About NOI Study Guides:
Why Self-Improvement?
About NOI Study Guides: What is this course of study? The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan laid the foundation for this course in a powerful speech delivered on September 21, 1986. The following is an excerpt.
"What would profit us to build magnificent structures, beautiful buildings, magnificent bridges, built with magnificent technology, and the soul of those human beings are wretched and deprived and underdeveloped and rottening from within?"
-Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan
"Self-Improvement: The Basis for Community Development" speech, September 21, 1986, Phoenix, AZ
"It is not enough that we grow horizontally through the acquisition of farms, factories, banks, industry, trade, commerce, money, and good homes. Why? Because horizontal growth alone is death. All dead things are on a horizontal level. Therefore, we must grow vertically, grow in uprightness, or we will be overcome by our horizontal growth."
~The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan
Introductory letter, dated December 12, 1986, to Self-Improvement: The Basis for Community Development (Study Guides 1-9), page xvii
The Foundation
"There is a verse in the Book, the Qur'an, that says on the Day of Judgment if a man owned all of the wealth that is in the Earth, he would ransom it to keep himself from the chastisement of God. What is it about the chastisement of God that is so great and what is it about the wealth people abundantly seek that is so little, that you would give it all away just so save your life in a time of trouble? This is why I have chosen the subject, Self-Improvement: The Basis for Community Development. Because it is the improvement of each of us as human beings that is lacking in the world and because instead of human beings improving, they are degenerating. Then there is no hope for the nations, for they are all on a path of self-destruction."
-Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan
Foreword by Sister Ava Muhammad in Self-Improvement: The Basis for Community Development (Study Guides 1-9), page ix
"Each Study Guide is designed on the guidance of Allah (God) to produce: self-examination; self-analysis; self-correction; and, to quicken in each of us, the self-accusing spirit. For it is only when we are awakened morally that we have to face the self-accusing spirit that leads to our resurrection.
"Resurrection is that process that begins with the self-accusing spirit and does not end until we become one in perfect harmony or peace with Allah and His Creation."
"The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said to me that if he could choose any symbol to represent His Work, it would be the trumpet; for the trumpet is the symbol of resurrection. It is a man, a voice and a truth, that is capable of quickening to life the inner voice, the spirit, the essence of Allah (God) in man.
"This quickening to life and this process of heeding truth and right guidance is the process that brings about a transformation in the Believer. As you know, mere belief counts for nothing except that it is carried into practice. This phase of our development is designed, by the help of Allah, to bring about a transformation or complete change in our lives. This is done by stimulating self-analysis and self-correction in us. Our Self Development actually brings into fruition the awesome power of Allah (God) to "make complete his (our) whole make" (Holy Quran 75:4).
-Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan
Introductory letter, dated December 12,1986, to Self-Improvement: The Basis for Community Development (Study Guides 1-9), page xv