About Islam - Islam ethnicity and raceIslam and Muslims are not a race, although racism is at times employed as a euphomism to attack Islam and Muslims. Islam strongly condemns any forms of racism, or discrimination based upon ethnicity, tribe, family, nationality or racial origin. "Let not a group scoff at another group, it may be that the latter are better than the former; nor let women scoff at other women, it may be that the latter are better than the former, nor defame one another, nor insult one another by nicknames. How bad is it, to insult one's brother after claiming to believe in Islam? And whosoever does not repent, then such are indeed wrong doers (doomed)" {49:11}
And Prophet Muhammad (s) said:"Indeed there is no superiority for an Arab over a non-Arab, nor a non-Arab over an Arab, nor a White person over a Black one, nor a Black person over a White one, superiority in only through piety & good behaviour" ""There are people who boast of their dead ancestors; but in the sight of god they are more contemptible than the black beetle that rolls a piece of dung with its nose. Behold, God has removed from you the arrogancefrom the previous days of ignorance, with its boast of ancestral glories. People are now only pious or an unfortunate sinners. All people are the children of Adam." "He who calls for nationalism/tribalism/racism or who fights for nationalism/tribalism/racism or who dies for nationalism/tribalism/racism is not one of us (a Muslim" "People should give up their pride in nations because that is a coal from the coals of Hell-fire.
Some comments made by famous people: (The Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca) was an exhilarating experience to see people belonging to different colours, races and nationalities, kings, heads of states and ordinary men from very poor countries all clad in two simple white sheets praying to God without any sense of either pride or inferiority. It was a practical manifestation of the concept of equally in Islam." 'No other society has such a record of success in uniting in an equality of status, of opportunity and endeavour so many and so varied races o mankind. The great Muslim communities of Africa, India and Indonesia, perhaps also the small community in Japan, show that Islam has still the power to reconcile apparently irreconcilable elements Of race and tradition.' (H.A.R. Gibb, 'Whither Islam', London, 193Z p. 379) "Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practised by people of all colours and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the home of Abraham, Muhammed, and all the other prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colours..." "There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white. You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth. During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug)-while praying to the same God with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of the blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the ‘white' Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan and Ghana. We are truly all the same-brothers.
"The extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding achievements of Islam, and in the contemporary world there is, as it happens, a crying need for the propagation of this Islamic virtue." "I hope the time is not far off when I shall be able to unite all the wise and educated men of all the countries and establish a uniform regime based on the principles of the Quran which alone are true and which alone can lead men to happiness." |
