Fawaz Turki praises Islam for what he claims is its equal treatment of Believers — Arab and non-Arab, white and black. The evidence is overwhelmingly against both claims.
First, Arabs are considered, by other Muslims, as well as by themselves, as superior to non-Arab Muslims, for a host of reasons:
- The message of Allah was delivered to a 7th century Arab and in his language, Arabic;
- All Muslims must turn toward Mecca, in Arabia, whenever they pray;
- They must make the hajj, if financially able, again to Mecca, once in their lives;
- They must ideally read and recite the Qur’an in Arabic;
- Many non-Arab converts take Arab names;
- Some Muslims even claim false Arab lineages, as self-described “Sayyids,” signifying that they descend from the tribe of the Prophet.
All this confirms Anwar Sheikh’s lapidary description of Islam as “the vehicle for Arab supremacism.” Recent Arab mistreatment of non-Arab Muslims — ranging from the linguistic and cultural suppression of Berbers in North Africa, to the mass murder by Saddam Hussein of 182,000 Kurds in Iraq, to which no Arabs anywhere objected (as Kanan Makiya pointed out), and the deliberate “arabization” of their lands — offer further evidence of Arab supremacism.
Second, Turki offers as evidence of racial equality in Islam the single example of Bilal, the Ethiopian who became a Muslim and was designated by Muhammad to be the first muezzin. But as against that example are such Hadith as that which insists a ruler should be obeyed “even if he was an Ethiopian (black) slave whose head looks like a raisin.” And another says that “anyone who says that the Prophet was black should be killed.” (Ibn Musa al-Yahsubi, Qadi ‘Iyad, p.375). Then there are the racist remarks about blacks, repeatedly described as “dumb animals,” “deficient in intelligence,” “not to be regarded as humans,” naturally “fit only to be slaves” — observations offered not by tangential figures, but by the most famous Arab scholars, jurists, Qur’anic commentators, and historians, such as Ibn Khaldun, Al-Tabari, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Qutaibah, Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī, Al-Muqaddasi, and Ibn Al-Faqih.
Can Nawaz Turki explain how these comments by the most celebrated of Muslim scholars and thinkers support his claim of a total absence of racism in his faith? Does he dare to discuss the devastating passages assembled above? He can neither call into question the prestige of those who made these racist observations, nor can he plausibly argue that these passages have been misunderstood.
Islam is the most successful imperialism in world history. It has conquered many lands and many peoples. And those Muslim conquerors have converted many people to Islam, convincing them not to oppose, but to identify completely with their conquerors, and to find fault with their own pre-Islamic pasts, considered to belong to the Jahiliyya, the Time of Ignorance. Some non-Arab Muslims wanted so much to identify with the Arabs that they claimed for themselves false family histories connecting them to the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad.
For those who, unlike Fawaz Turki, are interested in the truth, they will soon discover that Islam has a long history of favoring Arabs, their culture, and their language, over non-Arabs and their (inferior) cultures. Perhaps Fawaz Turki would deign to take a look at the evidence presented above, of supremacist statements by Arabs, and the many ways in which the practice of Islam reinforces that supremacism. And far from being free of racism, as Turki claims, Islam is disturbingly replete with outrageous statements about black Africans — “dumb animals,” “scarcely human,” etc. — that would make Henrik Verwoerd blush.
Should Turki examine the evidence of both Arab supremacism and anti-black racism within Islam, he could post his reaction right here at Jihad Watch, as a comment to this very piece.
Fawaz Turki, Jihad Watch readers would be delighted to read your response. Now’s your chance to engage in a little interfaith dialogue, based on the evidence presented in the three postings, including this one, that discuss your views. We hope to hear from you soon.