بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
ولا حول ولا قوة الا بالله العلي العظيم
Racism
is a disease of the heart and a kind of spiritual blindness in which a person
discriminates on things as superficial as skin color, hair texture, shape of
eyes, nose, lips and other physical features. We may acknowledge our racial
differences, but to think a race of people are superior or inferior on the
basis of their race is sheer ignorance. Islam is the only Religion which
seriously addresses the issue of racism, while some other religions like
Hinduism actually perpetuate racism and construct a theological foundation for
discrimination on the basis of race, caste and color.
A
large fraction of the Muslim community hails from the Indian subcontinent and
are descendants of Hindu converts, including myself. Although we are Muslims, our
society and culture still carries a lot of undesirable baggage from our pre-Islamic,
Hindu heritage, especially certain racist attitudes and behaviors. In fact, in
some aspects we are worse than the Hindus. The prevalence of cousin marriage,
for example, is largely a Muslim phenomenon. While Islamic law recognizes the
validity of cousin marriage, this license has been used and abused by Muslims,
especially certain South Asian and Arab communities, to create a tradition of first
cousin marriage for generations upon generations. This has led to so many
genetic, health problems due to lack of diversity in the gene pool. Interracial
marriage, which is sadly considered a cultural taboo among so many Muslim
communities, is actually something good and liked by our Religion, as evidenced
by the Prophet’s own Sunna of arranging interracial marriages. Among the
benefits of interracial marriage is that healthy diversity within the gene
pool, which actually contributes to greater physical beauty and attraction
along with improved health and physique. I myself am a product of a diverse
marriage - my father hails from Hyderabad (India) and my mother is a Punjabi
woman from Pakistan, whereas most of my other maternal relatives practice the
common Pakistani-Punjabi tradition of first cousin marriage that has proven to
be so destructive and unhealthy.
Colorism
is another social disease among Muslims of South Asia. The thriving market of “whitening”
products, which are quite harmful to the body and are known to cause skin
cancer, is an example of how our culture prefers fair complexion and looks down
on those who have more melanin in their skin. I view this phenomenon as evil
and an example of the the Qur’anic condemnation of “changing the creation of
Allah” (Sura 4:119). Likewise, the phenomena of nose jobs, lip injections or
reduction surgeries, and African people using certain harmful chemicals and
other products to “straighten” the natural texture of their hair, is a result
of an inferiority complex which European cultural colonialism is largely
responsible for. Allah created every race of human beings beautiful; each race
has its unique features and beauty. But it is more important to focus on the
inner beauty of the heart which increases with acts of compassion, good deeds
and selflessness.
The
Arabs have a greater responsibility to act upon the pure and honorable
teachings of Islam. That they have largely abandoned this responsibility and
are among the most corrupt of our community is quite self-evident. The
mistreatment of South Asians, Africans, Filipinos and other non-White groups in
the Gulf countries is a well known problem. Arab culture has a lot of racism
directed at Black Africans due to the historic injustice of chattel slavery, a
legacy of the pre-Islamic Arabs. Certain deragatory slurs are quite commonly
applied to Black Africans by Arabs who must be shamed and called to account for
this haram racism which, as I said, is a perversion of the heart. So
although we have a problem of racism in the Muslim community, it is not comparable
and at the same level as that which exists in non-Muslim societies like Hindu
India, China, Europe and Latin America. In fact, often we Muslims are the
victims of racism of non-Muslim bigotry, as is increasingly the case in Europe
and America. Muslims have been subjected to genocide such as what happened in
Bosnia during the 1990s, and more recently, the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in
Burma. In these genocides, Muslims were targeted not only on the basis of their
faith, but also because of their ethnic and racial differences. These days
there is a revival of White supremacism and racism in the Western world. While
these far-right forces of White supremacy target many different non-White
groups with their vitriolic hatred, we should always remember that they
consider us Muslims as their greatest enemy. In other worse, we have the
greatest stake in this global struggle against racism and prejudice. The recent
horrific terrorist massacre at two mosques in New Zealand reveals how this
racist and anti-Muslim bigotry is entering a dangerous, violent phase which we
should not ignore.
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