40 Hadiths on Social Justice
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Hadith #32 – Racism and Tribalism
Sh. Omar Suleiman describes how the Prophet ﷺ dealt with structural racism and tribalism at every level.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. We have a much smaller turnout today due to the weather, but at the same time, hopefully we can continue the flow of the discussion. Obviously, we're coming now to the last few lectures in this topic, and it gets really difficult at this point to pinpoint which topics make the last cut, the last ten. It's been very difficult sometimes to try to also bring multiple topics together. For example, do we address racism and tribalism as different subjects or not? Or do we address nationalism as well as tribalism in the same breath? Last week we spoke about what? Anybody? Or is it just a completely different group? Last week we talked about migration, refugees, we talked about immigrants, and that concept from an Islamic perspective. One of the reasons why we find refugees actually get their version of the white lash that we talk about is that they are looked at as outsiders, as others. They've been dehumanized to where a person who looks at them in a certain way cannot see any commonality between themselves and those people, whether it's because of the color of their skin. And racism does play a part. All of these things are interconnected, right? Didn't the President say that he wouldn't mind refugees from Europe as long as they're not coming from Haiti and other places? So racism does play an important role in how refugees are viewed as well. So all of these things tend to be interconnected. So I want to be very clear before this particular subject, which is looking at structural racism and tribalism, some of it is repetitive from the very first few classes that we held in the series, where the Prophet ﷺ talked about justice. But then some of it brings together three different elements, and I'll do my best to bring them together.
And one of the things that I noticed about the Ahadith, or I noticed about the traditions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, when he discusses this issue, is that he connected them all to a singular disease. Very interesting. So I looked at the Ahadith about racism, tribalism, and I tried to think which one would be the best one to start with. And they are plentiful. And one of the reasons why Islam has been, as many scholars and academics have observed, has been a beautiful religion that's attractive to many of the liberation movements that have arisen in many different time periods, is that it has such an explicit anti-racism tradition. It's very explicit in Islam. It doesn't have to be derived from general texts on equality. It's very explicit. And I thought, what could be the best Ahadith to start this subject off with? And I found this Hadith in which the Prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalam, actually uses quite the tone of condemnation. Which, as you know, if you read through the Ahadith of the Prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalam, that's the exception, it's not the norm. The Prophet, peace be upon him, did not use harsh language unless he was really trying to deliver a point on a particular topic. So this Hadith is in Abu Dawood, and I want you to think as I'm going through the Hadith how many themes are actually tied into this subject. The Prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalam, he said, Inna Allaha azzawajal qad adhhaba aankum ubiyat aljahliya wa fakhraha bil aba. He said, first and foremost, that verily Allah, the Most High, has removed from you the pride of the pre-Islamic period, the pride of the days of ignorance, and the slogans that are paid to its ancestors. The slogans that are paid to its ancestors, meaning when people swear in the name of their ancestors or in pride, based on their lineage or where they come from or who they come from. And he said, salallahu alaihi wasalam, he continued, he said,
Mu'minun taqee, wa thajirun shaqee. What exists now is only a pious believer or a miserable sinner. Then he continued, Antum banu Adam, wa Adamu min turab. You are all the children of Adam, and Adam was created from dirt. This is a long Hadith, but I want you to think about all the themes, because I'm going to ask you to tell me what themes you heard in all of these things. So the Prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalam, said, Layada'anna rijalun fakhrahum bi aqwamin. The Prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalam, said, Let everyone give up all of the boasting that they do in the name of their ancestors. And then he continued, he said, Layakoonunna ahwana ala Allahi minal ja'alani allati tadfa'u bi anfiha alnatin. He said, salallahu alaihi wasalam, that they are merely, actually I skipped something, innamaahum fahmun min fahmi jahannam. He said, they are merely the fuel of the fire of hell, or they will certainly be of less account with Allah than the beetle which rolls dung with its nose. Pretty strong Hadith. There are about ten themes in that one Hadith. Tell me some of the themes that you heard. Arrogance, okay, where did you get that from? Pride, the pride that you take in something else, okay, what else? What else do you hear in there? Yeah. Okay, so a paradigm shift. What exists now is only a pious believer or a wicked sinner, a miserable sinner. Great, so paradigm shift, a monumental change in the way that people are viewed in terms of their quality. What else? You guys heard nothing? There are like ten themes in there. Anybody?
Does the rain make everybody quiet? Is that gloomy weather? Just keep on giving them to me. Unity, very good. You are all the children of Adam. So in the midst of condemnation, the Prophet Salallahu alaihi wasalam reminds, you are all the children of Adam. See each other as all as the children of Adam. What else? Everyone made from dirt. What does that convey? All equal and all very low at the same time. That from a bodily perspective, there is nothing to take pride in, in regards to our external creation. What beautifies a person is who they are on the inside, because at the end of the day, we all come from a low place. Anything else? Stuck out? What about the analogy? A beetle rolling dung in the dirt with its nose. When you think of arrogance, what is usually used to convey arrogance? Nose raised high, right? So even, especially in the Arabic language, the Arabic expression, Rahim anful, okay? May his nose be in the dirt. That is what they used to, what traditionally Arabs used to say, that Rahim anful, may his nose be in the dirt, which demonstrates the utmost humiliation. So this is a long hadith, and it contains many themes. And I think it's important for us to understand that sometimes we conflate, and sometimes that conflation is justified, tribalism and racism when we're looking at the hadith of the Prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalam. Why? And there's a very good article by Dr. Abdullah Hamid Ali called Beyond Race, and he mentions, in the pre-modern era, race and group membership were determined largely by cultural traits, especially language and shared customs, rather than by skin color. Most of the Arabs were dark, alright? So if you read about the Arabs in the time of the Prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalam, most of them had a darker complexion,
but then there were some that had exceptionally dark complexions, but most of them were darker. But what defined a group of people at that time, people were not defined in Mecca in the 7th century by the color of their skin. They were more defined by their tribe, their language, their custom, their lineage, their fathers. Those were the things that consisted of groups, and that's why sometimes you might have multiple descriptions of the same person with different colors, because it wasn't that important of an item for many people. Nevertheless, it falls in. But that's why, for example, and I think that a lot of these things we talked about when we did the class on Bilal radiyallahu ta'ala anhu, that the man who insulted Bilal and called him, Ya ibn Saudah, you son of a black woman, was a black man himself, was Abu Dharr, who was a black man himself, and that confuses a lot of people. How can a black man say that to another black man? Well, he was a black Arab, Bilal was Abyssinian. So they're both black, but what he meant by, Ya ibn Saudah, oh son of a black woman, was he was referring to the non-Arab black mother of Bilal. So it gets confusing to us now, but back then it was very clear what that connotation was. So these things tie together various things. So the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he compared all of this, boasting about your, or finding a sense of superiority in your ancestry, in your lineage, in who your father is, in your color. All of these things fall into the same category, loosely, of Asabiyyah, of boasting about something that you should not be boasting about. The word is Asabiyyah, okay? Boasting about something that you should not be boasting about. And so you find many different categories of this. And the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, called it filth. So when he mentions this beetle that's rolling the dung with its nose, and he calls it Natn, the dung is called Natn,
the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, when he heard people speaking in tribalistic terms, he said, Da'uha, leave it, and he said, Fa'innaha, muntina, because it's filthy. He used the same word. It's literally filthy. And there's another word that I would use, but there are kids in here, but it does have that same connotation. That's what the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, called that attribution of tribe or race and using it in a way to denigrate other people. And the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, solved this at every level. So when we talk about societal racism, i.e. structural racism, it penetrates culture as well. A lot of times when people talk about structural racism, they think about it purely in political terms. But it's also sociological. So for example, the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, came into a society where people regularly swore by their lineage. And he said, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, man kana halifan fala yahlifu illa billah. Whoever swears by something, let him not take an oath except by Allah. Wakanat Quraysh tahlifu bi-abaiha. Faqara la tahlifu bi-abaikun. Quraysh was prominent for everyone swearing by their forefathers. And the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, said, do not swear by your forefathers. Also the idea that people might fight under these banners. And this is what ends up happening. A lot of times you find that people dwell in peace with one another, and then titles and labels and ways to divide them are created, and then people buy into it, and that's the amazing thing about it. You think about the partition, the British partition of Pakistan and India, I'm not going to touch that, I'm not taking sides here. But look at the amount of death and destruction that it caused. So identities are created, people are divided, and they kill each other over those identities. And that's what ends up happening. The Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, whoever fights for a cause that is not clear, advocating asabiyya, advocating tribalism, and dying for the sake of tribalism, that person has died a death of jahiliyya,
they've died a death of ignorance. Jahiliyya, he refers to the days of ignorance, i.e. the days of kufr, because people used to kill each other over their tribes. That was what they were prominent for. That's why madani society, the society of Medina, was mostly under 40-year-olds, because their dads all killed each other. That's the harbal basus, the tribalistic wars that took place in Mecca before the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, was even born. So you think about someone who dies in the name of these isms, tribalism or nationalism, killing someone just because they belong to a different ism, and that person would be deemed noble by his tribesmen or his people. The Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, said, that's a death of ignorance. There's no nobility in fighting under those banners or fighting for those causes. And of course the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, when he admonished Abu Dhar, when he called Bilal, son of a black woman, he said to Abu Dhar, that you have within you jahiliyya, you still have the traces of the days of ignorance. And the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, made it clear that this is something that would remain. It would remain in this ummah, it would remain amongst this nation. He said in an authentic hadith in Sahih Muslim, that there are four traits of the days of ignorance that will always remain in this ummah. So four traits of the days of ignorance that will always remain amongst us in some capacity. The first one, he said, is boasting about al-fakhr bil-aba, boasting about your ancestors, boasting about your fathers and things of that sort, so that asabiyya. The second one, he said, denigrating others on the basis of their lineage. The first one is your own boastfulness over who you are, where you came from, and whatever you've created of that past. The second one is actually putting people down on the basis of who they are, or on the basis of their lineage. Then he said, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, the other two are not related.
He said, seeking to be given reign by means of the stars. So this is talking about superstitious behavior. And the last one was niyaha over the dead, which is the wailing over the dead. Of course, crying when someone passes away is permissible, but the rituals of mourning and wailing over the dead, these are not Islamic in their nature. So these are things that the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, said would always remain amongst us. So when you see periods in the ummah, past and present, where there are elements of racism or tribalism, this was already prophesied, that these are diseases, that though ideally they'd be eradicated, they always would remain in some manifestation. And they switch as people begin to identify with different groups, and the dynamics of racism and tribalism are always in motion. The manifestations change, but at the same time, people remain in those same states of mind. So the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, made it clear, first and foremost, and it starts with this, and I want you to remember this when we do the halaqa on gender equity, that it starts with affirming spiritual equality as a foundation. Because your intrinsic value is actually who you are spiritually. Your true value is who you are spiritually, right? It's by taqwa, right? It's by your piety. The word is taqwa, your piety. So the traditions of the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, in which he negates tribalism and racism, don't just negate the ugliness of tribalism and racism, but they also affirm spiritual equality, that complete spiritual equality. And Allah made the tie between the two, and of course, as we said, this verse was revealed in response to some of the comments made about Bilal, according to some of the scholars, where Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, says, Ya ayyuha al-nas, inna khalaqnakum min dhakrin wa untha wa ja'alnakum shu'uban wa qabaila li ta'arafu
inna akramakum aind Allahi atqaakum inna Allaha alimun kabeer which is, O people, Allah has made you into nations and tribes, male and female. So, nations and tribes, i.e. races, different colors, different ancestries, different lineages, that's one side of it, and then male and female, all of that, why? li ta'arafus, that you cooperate and get to know one another, but verily the most noble of you in the sight of Allah, inna akramakum aind Allahi atqaakum, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah, is the one who has the most piety. That's the only thing that makes you a different person, that's the only distinction that you earn in the sight of Allah, no matter what's being advocated around you, no matter what your color is, no matter who your parents are, no matter what your passport is, no matter what your class is, the only thing that distinguishes you in the sight of Allah is purely your faith, your piety, okay? And taqwa is encompassing, your piety, not just your rituals, your piety as a whole. And this was a paradigm shift, as you mentioned. And it's interesting that the sahaba took time, companions took time to really fully digest what this would look like in their society. So Abu Huraira narrates that one time, the people said to the Prophet ﷺ, man akramun nas? O Messenger of Allah, who's the most noble of people? So the Prophet ﷺ responded, atqaakum, he simply said, the most righteous amongst you, the most pious amongst you. They said, laisa an hadha nas'aluk, that's not what we're asking you about. We don't mean it like that. We mean nobility in a different form. So the Prophet ﷺ said, well, if you're asking about nobility in a different form, he said, then Yusuf, nabiullah, Joseph, who was a Prophet of Allah,
the son of Allah's Prophet, the son of Allah's Prophet, the son of Allah's Prophet. But if you're thinking about it from a lineage perspective, Yusuf, Joseph, the son of Yaqub, Jacob, the son of Ishaq, Isaac, the son of Ibrahim, Abraham. It doesn't get more noble than that. They said, if you're thinking about lineage, if you're really looking for a noble lineage, look at that. And they are noble not because of who they are in terms of their race or their tribe. They're noble because they were Prophets of Allah and you're not going to find a lineage that stacks up like that in terms of prophecy. They said, if that's what you're talking about, then that's the most noble man that ever existed, based on that. And they said to the Prophet ﷺ, again, laisa an hadha nas'aluk, we're not asking you about that, we're asking you about something else. We mean amongst us. Okay? So the Prophet ﷺ said, fa'an ma'adanil arabi tas'alun, what you're really asking about is the descent of the Arabs. That's what you're really trying to get to, right? So he said, khiyaruhum fil jahliya khiyaruhum fil islam idha faqihu. He said, the best amongst them in the days of ignorance are the best amongst them in Islam, if they gain religious understanding. Meaning the only way that that transition of nobility takes place is if religion and faith and piety are added to it and religious understanding. Other than that, they get left behind. There's no nobility of Abu Lahab, there's no nobility of Abu Jahl, there's no nobility of these people, even though before Islam they would have been considered the most noble of the Arabs. By all thresholds. But there's no nobility, but only humiliation that exists amongst them. So affirming that particular spiritual foundation that everyone is judged by their taqwa, first and foremost, their piety. And what's really interesting is that taqwa, taqwa can't be read by anybody. Right? So this is the very powerful part.
Where did the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam say taqwa lies? He said, taqwa ha huna, taqwa ha huna, taqwa ha huna. He said, piety is here, piety is here, piety is here. So, what the only thing that would distinguish you amongst the people around you is what is not accessible to any human eye. So what does that mean in terms of how we treat one another? Exactly equal not knowing who is higher in the sight of Allah than the other because Allah only distinguishes us by taqwa, by piety, which is not accessible to anybody else. And that's what the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam spoke about. So here are some things we can also lay from this inshallah to us. I want to move on to sort of human history. The scholars spoke about why the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam saw this as such a great evil. And if you just think about what this disease, as it's manifested itself in many different ways, has led to. It's led to genocide, it's led to ethnic cleansing, it's led to racial massacres, it's led to inquisitions, it's led to holocaust, it's led to enslavement, it's led to apartheid. I think the most evil thing I ever saw was when I was going through South Africa and I was going through the Apartheid Museum and the way that those districts still exist. They had color grading systems. Like you literally are deemed higher based on the complexion of your skin. That determines where you stand in line, that determines what neighborhoods you're allowed to live in, that determines what services you access. So it's not just black and white, it's where you fall on the complexion spectrum that determines your value. That's not a 7th century thing. That's like in our parents' lifetime. Whites only, blacks only, that's in our lifetime.
We're seeing it play out in more implicit ways, it's become more explicit and more ugly and obvious. But at the same time, these are things that take place in our times, these are things that we've witnessed. So the idea is that if you can designate someone as the out-group, and that's the idea here, you either designate one group of people in the in-group to the exclusion of everybody else and the mistreatment of everybody else, or you scapegoat one population and designate them as the out-group. Either way, the imbalance that's created there is unlike any other imbalance. When you are able to out someone, either as a specific group or all other groups but one, then all types of policy and all types of prejudice and all types of discrimination that enhance the privilege of that one in-group, or all the in-groups to the exclusion of that one out-group, based on the claim of inferiority of those out-groups or that particular out-group. So in that case, who is the first racist in history? Shaytan, the devil. The devil is the first racist. Why? Because I am better than him, because you created me from fire and you created him from dirt. Now when Shaytan said that, when he indicated that, it wasn't just speaking about the external matter of Adam alayhi salam. That statement combines all forms of privilege into one. He wasn't just talking about the superiority of fire over dirt.
There was more to it. And usually racism is not just about the superiority or it's almost never about the superiority of appearance. There is so much more behind it and all of that is socially engineered. About the discrepancy between groups or the discrepancy between people based on the way that they are created. So it's lazy and that's why Ibn al-Qayyim, one of the great scholars of Islam, Ibn al-Qayyim called racism shirk. It's polytheism. It's paganism. You don't have to look further than Dallas. People would get much more upset if you remove a statue of Robert E. Lee than if you remove a statue of Jesus in the public square. Because what's being worshipped is not Christ. What's being worshipped is whiteness. And that's the representation right there. So it's everything that's encompassed within the term. It's not about the appearance. It's what's encompassed. Paying homage to our ancestors and swearing by them. The confederate flag has become the new swastika. That this is it. What is it really about? And what does it really mean in terms of today? There is a connection between all of these things. So when the Prophet ﷺ says, لا تحرفوا بأبائكم Don't swear by your ancestors. What about people now that raise monuments and statues to the confederacy, i.e. white supremacy, in Texas? What is that really speaking to? It's holding onto a sense of privilege and a sense of entitlement and it has present day implications. So what are just some items to take from this? Number one, when it comes to tribalism and nationalism, is there a positive form of nationalism in Islam or tribalism in Islam? Does there exist a positive manifestation?
Not just yes or no. You've got to give your evidences. Defending your own land? Okay. I'll take that. Defending your own land. What else though? Knowing your history? Okay. Is patriotism Islamic? No? Because you're supposed to belong to the faith rather than the nation. That's nationalism. So what's patriotism? So patriotism is more surrounding making your society a better place. Okay. Alright. So let's divide the two really quick on tribalism and nationalism. Because I was going to do a whole halaqa on nationalism and tribalism. I changed my mind and decided to just incorporate it here. If you're speaking about wanting good for your people, i.e. your qawm, your people in the Quran, that's a different terminology than your ummah. Your ummah are your Muslim brothers and sisters around the world. Your ummah. Your qawm are your people. Your people are either those who share your nationality or share your tribe, or those who you're grouped into by some other dynamic. Okay. It exists in the Quran. It exists in the Sunnah. And if what you mean by that is bettering the situation of your people, not to the detriment of the others, not through a call of privilege or entitlement, but rather through a call of living up to our best ideals, which means helping others as well, that's all good.
Okay. The Prophet ﷺ loved his qawm. He never stopped being a Hashemite. Even though he was the messenger of Allah to all people, he never stopped being a Hashemite. But his love for his tribe did not mean that he denigrated other tribes or gave preference to his own tribe in terms of services or humanity or things of that sort, but rather it denotes a love and a bond that's appreciated in Islam. So the Prophet ﷺ allowed people, for example, when battles took place, people fought alongside their families and their extended families. He used to call people or he used to send people to their tribes to call them to Islam knowing that they would take it from, or they were more likely to respond to the call of faith from a tribesman, from someone who looked like them, who spoke like them, than from a foreigner. Right? He understood that. And that's why he tried to send the most familiar person to a people when they would call them to Islam. Similarly, Allah praises this idea of people wanting good for their home, their people, and speaking to the Prophet, speaking to their people as my people, despite them not yet believing in their faith, or ever believing in their faith, that they're my people. Okay? So the Prophet ﷺ validated these things. He validated Aus and Khazraj, the tribes of the Amsar that historically fought one another. He validated those identities. The only time he condemned the identities is when it led to strife and civil war and when people started to use them as calls against the other. Otherwise, the Prophet ﷺ actually challenged them to live up to their greatest claims and their best ideals. Okay? And in that is an important lesson. So I'll just read a paragraph from Dr. Salah Al-Sawi. He said,
Wa laa, which is religious loyalty, and all it entails of love and support for our co-religionists does not inflict with national identity and the love and affection its social bonds naturally generate. We believe that we are part of the Muslim ummah, the global community in light of our religion, and a part of our respective local societies in light of our citizenry and our human relationships. We do not believe there is an inherent conflict between a religious and national identity, so long as one's country does not criminalize religiosity or curtail the right to practice one's religion or call to it. We also believe that living together should naturally weave a social fabric between a people of a shared homeland, allowing for a harmonious coexistence between them, regardless of how different their beliefs may be. This involves an ethos of kindness, justice, and security against harm. It also necessitates a reciprocation of social responsibility that is shared by all and observes the sanctity of people's lives, wealth, honor, and public spaces, which cannot be touched except by the current laws or the governing bodies of the land. The point being is that there is a difference between wa laa, this religious loyalty that you feel towards your Muslim brothers and sisters around the world, and the loyalty that you feel to your people that you share identity with by whatever virtue it may be, whatever paradigm it may be. Those things do not conflict with one another. It's not harmful until it manifests itself in bigotry or discrimination or denigrating the other. And this is something the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did very well, which is he called tribes to their best values. So if the people of this tribe were known for their generosity, he called them to live up to their generosity. He validated their culture of generosity.
So live up to your generosity, but don't accept privilege, because that privilege no longer exists in Islam. Identity that brings you together as a people from outside of the religion, your people, that's fine, you should want good for your people and love your people, but at the same time it cannot lead to denigrating others. Now, how do you draw the fine line between this and racism? Because oftentimes racism is disguised as nationalism, right? Ethno-nationalism, okay? White nationalism, alright? A nicer word for white supremacy. Alright? What's that? So you look at preferential treatment and you can also poke holes in the insincerity of those quote-unquote nationalistic calls. Because if the white, if the nationalist, the American nationalist, has more wala, more loyalty to the refugee from the Netherlands than an African-American that lives next door or two streets over, then that's a false nationalism. That's really racism. White nationalism is really just a fancy way of describing racism. What about religious supremacism? Religious supremacism. As a Muslim, do you believe that Islam is superior to other religions? You obviously would not be a Muslim, I mean it wouldn't be worth all the struggle, quite frankly, if you didn't believe that your religion was superior. But does that mean that you act intolerantly towards those of other faiths? No, or that you deem other people inferior. Okay? So that's also a fine line that has to be drawn. And these are things that can get very tricky, you know, when they're played out on the grand scheme of things. Alright, so now let's get to structural racism. So how does this play out now in terms of our interactions?
I'll read to you what Malcolm X wrote when he went to Mecca. Malcolm said, America needs to understand Islam because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problems. The race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would have been considered white, but the white attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. So Malcolm understood it wasn't about the complexion, it was about the white mind, it was about what whiteness entailed to that group of people. I have never before seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all colors together, irrespective of their color. When Malcolm said Islam is the one religion that does this, Malcolm was calling attention to what a lot of liberationists have called attention to, which is again, the explicit anti-racism tradition. The last message of the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam. He said, there is no superiority of the Arab over the non-Arab, or of the white over the black, or vice versa in both of those situations. So it's explicit. And that's something that he mentioned. And that explicit nature of Islam is unique, and we should take pride in that as Muslims. The explicit anti-racism tradition is unique. Are there racist Muslims? Yes. Did Malcolm encounter racist Muslims? The man traveled the entire Muslim world. You don't think he encountered racist Muslims? You don't think he saw it? He saw it. But Malcolm was speaking to the philosophy, and he saw the potential of it in what he saw in Hajj, and what he saw with some of the people that he encountered. And that's what we're supposed to cling on to. And it's really interesting, because even Gandhi, who, and I'm not praising all of Gandhi's philosophy, but Gandhi, even he wrote that Islam was superior, he was of course a Hinduism,
superior in his mind, more so than Hinduism, in its absolutist version of human brotherhood. So when he wrote, he wrote, Islam's distinctive contribution to India's national culture is the unadulterated belief that in the oneness of God and the practical application of the truth of the brotherhood of man for those who are nominally within its fold. I call these two distinctive contributions. For in Hinduism, the spirit of brotherhood has become too much philosophized. Similarly, through philosophical Hinduism, though philosophical Hinduism has no other god but God, it cannot be denied that practical Hinduism is not so emphatically uncompromising as Islam. The uncompromising nature of it is very unique, particularly when it comes to race, constructs of race and tribe. I do want to mention that there are times in Muslim history that blackness as a color was disparaged, and black people struggled. But unlike in Europe, throughout Islamic history, black Muslims were able to rise to the top levels in scholarship. So structurally, the Prophet, Salaam alaykum, appointing Bilal as the first caller of prayer, penetrated culture in a way that the first Mufti of Mecca could also be a black man, who was not an Arab. So religious scholarship. They could run dynasties. We found this in our history, the Mamluk dynasty. Lead armies. How many of you have heard of Tariq bin Ziyad? Tariq bin Ziyad was black, and in fact, most of the people that were with him, ethnically or from an appearance perspective, were black. So those racist attitudes were overcome in many different periods of Islam. And the Prophet, Salaam alaykum, paid very close attention to it. It penetrates marriage. So we talked about this when we talked about Bilal, the Prophet, Salaam alaykum,
taking Bilal, an Abyssinian black man, former slave, to the most noble families of the Arabs, and proposing marriage on his behalf. Appointing Bilal as Khaznu Bayt al-Ma'id, as the head of the treasury. And making him the first mu'adhin, caller to prayer in all three of the holy places. It also has emotional and mental and organic penetration as well. So what is the effect of seeing the Prophet of Allah calling Umm Habiba, I'm sorry, not Umm Habiba, Umm Ayman, Baraka, Umm Ayman. What's the effect of seeing the Prophet of God calling a woman who was black, who was also a former slave, Umm Ayman, my mother after my mother. That this is actually my mother after my mother. And honoring her the way that he did. What's the effect of the first martyr of Islam being a black woman? Umm Ayya radiallahu anha was a black woman. What's the effect of knowing that the first martyr of Islam was a black woman? Or the adopted son of the Prophet, Salaam alaykum, Zayd radiallahu anhu was black. Or the first shaheed of Badr, the first martyr on the day of Badr was a black man, Mihja radiallahu anhu. So what does this do to the psyche, the ethos of the Muslim community? Tribalism was the bigger problem because it was the bigger construct of their time. But all of those things naturally, naturally seep in and they also remove, they also remove some of the things that would be so much more obvious to other societies. So the first leader, the first commander of the army after the Prophet, Salaam alaykum, was Usama bin Zayd radiallahu anhu. The companions did complain, some of them complained about Usama bin Zayd being appointed. Did anyone complain because of his skin color? No, they complained because he was 17. So some of the companions were worried about a 17 year old leading the army.
But no one mentioned his skin color, which Usama bin Zayd is described in the hadith of Abu Dawood as being the blackest of black. No one even thought to say there's something about his skin color, or that he's lower because of his skin color, even though the Prophet, Salaam alaykum, includes him like his grandchildren and his children. But they were worried about him being 17 years old. There's a prominent incident that takes place, which is about Ubadah bin Samit radiallahu anhu. And Ubadah bin Samit, Ubadah was one of the first of the Ansar, a very dark man, and he's one of Kutab al-Wahi, so he's one of the people that the Prophet, Salaam alaykum, appointed to write revelation. He accompanied the Prophet, peace be upon him, in every battle. And it's really interesting because in the Khilafah of Umar, under Umar bin al-Khattab, Ubadah was leading an army, and they laid siege to a Babylon fort. In the year 641, which is actually Coptic Cairo, where Cairo is today, so it's in Egypt. And the leader of Egypt at the time, al-Muqawqis, he was under siege. So he called for a Muslim delegation. He said, send me your best guy forward. He sent the message, send me your guy forward. So Muqawqis comes out in his grandest appearance, expecting to see some Aladdin-looking Arab. And Ubadah ibn Samad comes forward. And he looks at Ubadah, and he doesn't even want to talk to him. He actually says, which shows you anti-blackness and how it's playing out. Now mind you, this is in the Khilafah of Umar, so most of the people there are companions. This isn't another generation where it takes time to change these attitudes. These are Sahaba for the most part. They're companions or the children of companions. So he sees Ubadah, and Ubadah is standing in front of the whole army,
and he looks at him and he says to the others, Iba'du anni dhalika al-aswad wa qaddimu ghayrahu liyukallimuni. He said, move this black man away from me and send someone else to talk to me. I'm not going to talk to him. So when he said that to the people, the front line of the companions, or the front line of the army, responded and said, inna hadha afdhaluna ra'yan wa ilman. That this man is the best of us in knowledge and the best of us in wisdom. He is our leader and he is the best of us and he has been appointed over us. And our leader, meaning the Khalifa, Umar ibn al-Khattab, has ordered us to obey every one of his commands. And they said, wa inna al-aswada wa al-abyada indana sawa. White and black to us are the exact same thing. How beautiful. Like it penetrated their attitudes to the point that they're responding to a foreign leader and saying, no, we don't have a problem. You have a problem with Ubadah ibn al-Salamah being black. We don't. Okay? And actually to us, they made it a point to do some da'wah to him at the same time. And say, actually to us, they're both the exact same thing. So Muqawqis says to them, he actually walks up to one of them and he says, how could you accept him to be the leader of you when he should be the lowest of you? So he's still trashing Ubadah ibn al-Salamah. And Ubadah ibn al-Salamah is standing there patiently. Okay? And they said, wallahi, he is the best of us and the foremost amongst us and the most wise of us. So Muqawqis finally submits and he goes up to Ubadah and he says, okay, fine. He said, speak to me, ya aswad, so speak to me, oh black man. But he said, speak gently because your darkness scares me. So he's still insulting Ubadah ibn al-Salamah.
This is one of the guys that wrote Qur'an, wrote the revelation, one of the greatest of the companions. Now Ubadah, this is what's really powerful. Ubadah, you know, he's enjoying this, all right? He's enjoying this fear that Muqawqis has of him because of his color. So Ubadah, what matters is the fact that how Allah sees him and how his companions see him, right? So Ubadah ibn al-Salamah, he says, listen, if you're afraid of me, I've left behind a thousand men and they're all blacker than me. So he said, if you're afraid of me, I'm gonna bring all of them forward and you'll have to deal with them. Subhanallah, he understands this ugliness that's coming and it didn't faze him. Because that was what he found in the community of the Prophet ﷺ. And that was one of the ways that that was sort of taught. And that was the attitude that the Prophet ﷺ put forward. Sometimes you have someone that could also internalize that. So you have, you know, we're running out of time. But Sa'd ibn al-Aswad, in the time of the Prophet ﷺ, was a man who thought himself to be ugly because of his complexion, his dark complexion. And the Prophet ﷺ builds him up, builds up his self-esteem, takes him and proposes on his behalf to marry the daughter of Amr ibn Wahb, who was one of the greatest leaders or the most noble of Arabs from Banu Thaqib. And the Prophet ﷺ teaching him to love himself. And that's also something that's important because sometimes internalized racism is very dangerous to a people as well. And the story of Julaibib, right, the story of Julaibib where the Prophet ﷺ looks for this man. Julaibib was a man who was looked down upon for many reasons, okay, many reasons.
His appearance, his class. Julaibib means someone who has deformities. And his race. He had a very dark complexion. He had no tribe. He had no parents. He had no one. And the Prophet ﷺ used to always, always look on behalf of Julaibib, always ask about him, always put him on a pedestal, always talk him up, always smile at him. He took special care of Julaibib. May Allah be pleased with him. And the Prophet ﷺ, in fact, he took him. This is a very famous story. And it's very powerful because, again, it's penetrating at many different levels. He goes to the most noble tribe of Medina and he says to the father, inni uridu anna tazawwujib natak, that, you know, I'm asking about your daughter for marriage. And they thought that the Prophet ﷺ was talking about himself. So they got excited. The Prophet ﷺ said, no, no, no. He said, I'm not talking about me. La uriduha li nafsi, inni uriduha li Julaibib. He said, I'm not asking for myself. I'm asking on behalf of Julaibib. When he said that, the woman started to scream, Julaibib? Julaibib? Like, are you crazy? Julaibib? No. Screams at the Prophet ﷺ at the top of her lungs. And she swore by Allah to the Prophet of Allah that we'll never marry Julaibib to our daughter. But what happened? The daughter came out. The daughter heard the conversation and said, look, if the Prophet ﷺ said that he's a good fit, he's a good fit. So she insisted on marrying him. Uthman r.a paid his mahr, his dowry, and there he was. And right after that, a battle starts. And after the battle is over, the Prophet ﷺ is looking around, or he's asking the different tribes, and this is again the way that the battle would take place,
is tribes and family men would get together and they'd fight in these battles. And he says to them, hal tafqidun ahad? Are you missing anyone? And everyone checked out and said, no, we're not missing anyone. He says, lakinni athqidu Julaibib. He said, but I'm missing Julaibib. Where's Julaibib? Like, he's my family man. Like, he's from me. So they found Julaibib r.a. And Julaibib was laying down dead next to seven of the opposing army. And the Prophet ﷺ, when he stood over him, he started to cry. He praised his effort. And then what did he say? He said, Allahumma hadha minni wa ana minhum. Oh Allah, this one is from me and I am from him. He is mine and I am his. This man who has mistreated his entire life, hadha minni wa ana minhum. He is of me and I am of him. And the Prophet ﷺ himself, think about the scene. Ibn Umar describes it. The Prophet ﷺ himself dug his grave, picked up his body, and buried him. So you think about assigning value to a person whose society did not assign any value to. It means something. You go through the list. How do you deal with this structurally? And then there is Akhjan, who was also an Abyssinian woman, who we spoke about before, used to clean the masjid, the Prophet ﷺ finding her missing one night, and then asking what happened to her. And they said she passed away and they buried her. And the Prophet ﷺ was upset. Why didn't you tell me about it? I would have prayed on her. And he goes and finds her grave and re-does a prayer for her. Not finding her too insignificant. And of course Allah sending Jibreel, sending Gabriel to the Prophet ﷺ so that he could pray janazah for Najashi, the emperor of Abyssinia. Structurally, how do you deal with this? Marriage, leadership, politically, socially. The Prophet ﷺ squashing attitudes in all of these different spectrums.
Governorship. Anyone heard of Muhammad ibn Maslamah? Muhammad ibn Maslamah was black. He was a governor under all of the khulafa, under all of the righteous caliphs. He served as a governor. That didn't stop him. Nafi' Mawla ibn Umar, the first mufti of Mecca as we mentioned. Sa'id ibn Jubair. And the list goes on and on and on and on. The point is that the Prophet ﷺ sought to erase the attitude, the racist attitudes that exist in all of these different spaces by leading by example himself. And by putting people in positions. Religious leadership, political leadership, marriage, social interactions, family interactions, and also everyone finding their own individual value in their taqwa, in their piety, and not denigrating others because they belong to a lower class or because they belong to a different tribe or a different race. So this is where the Prophet ﷺ splits things and he says that the only difference that exists, and it goes back to the first hadith, mu'minun taqee wa thajirun shaqee. What exists today is only a pious believer or a wicked sinner, a miserable sinner. May Allah ﷻ make us pious believers and allow us to be a part of squashing this disease as it exists in our families, as it exists... You would think that being educated people, living where we live, that these things wouldn't happen. But they happen every day and they happen from people that you would never expect it from. It penetrates our families. So you have to think about yourself. And I want everyone to be self-critical about what would the Prophet ﷺ say about how I view people of different tribes, different races. It's so silly that sometimes people that share the exact same language
and same race, but they're divided by this border. Somehow they're, you know, can't marry this person, we can't have this happening, can't have that happening. We have to all sort of accept this as a part of our own personal obligation to try to squash it wherever we see it. May Allah ﷻ protect us from this disease. May Allah ﷻ allow us to be change-makers and be amongst those who are themselves pious believers. Allahumma ameen. Next week there is going to be no class. I'm not going to be in town. I do want to mention a few notes. Since we're talking about racism as it exists today, many of you saw the judgment in the case of Alton Sterling today in Baton Rouge, and many of you have heard of the man that was assassinated in his backyard in Sacramento. Stephen Clark was actually a Muslim. So I'm actually traveling to Sacramento for his janazah, the recent convert to Islam, so we ask Allah to have mercy on him and to grant justice to him and to the families of Jordan Edwards and Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and all of these families as they exist today. But it shows you how these things penetrate so many different layers of our identity and who we are. And this is really, you know, this is an interesting time in America, but it's also an opportunity for us to pose these questions and to lead as a moral example for people around us with people who are also willing to embrace that same spirit from an Islamic perspective. So please keep his family in your du'a, in your prayers. And inshallah to Allah I'll take questions and I'll make a couple of other announcements.
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