By Dr. Jimmy Jones – Research Fellow at Yaqeen Institute and member of the American Academy of Religion
Transcribed for hiba by Saadia Ahmed
When it comes to the issue of race and the Muslim leadership, there are three statements that we ought to think about:
- Race is not real but racism is.
- Prejudice is a very, very powerful thing.
- The mighty multi-culture community of Prophet Muhammad (sa) is the way forward.
Let’s take a closer look at the above three statements.
Race is not real but racism is.
Allah (swt) says in Surah An-Nisa: “O humankind, fear your Lord, Who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women. And fear Allah, through whom you ask one another, and the wombs. Indeed, Allah is ever, over you, an Observer.” (An-Nisa 4:1)
This Ayah is a clear indicator that all the people on earth come from one person. If we look at each other, no matter where we come from, we all have the same common ancestor.
Race is a social construct; the way you are seen racially has often more to do with WHERE you are than WHO you are. The other thing that makes race not a reality is that it is also constraint by time, those who are considered as “white people” now were not considered “white” a 100 years ago. When the Irish came to the United States they were seen as outsiders, people to be feared, someone to be marginalized and now they too are considered amongst the white. Hence, we see that the concept race is very fluid; it has more to with power and relationships.
Prejudice is a very, very powerful thing…
We talk about prejudice a lot. We know that people can be prejudiced both for and against other people but the reality is that it can have some very powerful positive and negative impacts on both relationships and groups.
If we think about what happened particularly to Jews, gypsies, people with disabilities and homosexuals in Germany, we see that the effect can be very powerful if we convince people that someone is less than yourself – it can lead to extermination.
Prejudice moves from a mild situation to an extreme situation, where people think about exterminating other people. There are five levels of acting out prejudice:
Level 1: Antilocution – Talking negatively about people, telling jokes about skin colour, race or religion. This is the mildest form of acting out prejudice.
Level 2: Avoidance – If a certain person comes into the room for instance a black person or blonde person and you feel that this person should not be around you, you intentionally choose to avoid that person. This is the next strongest form of acting out prejudice.
Level 3: Discrimination – This is the codification of Level 2, that is, putting it into a formal rule or law or a court decree that a certain group of people is less than another group of people. Segregated schools for black people was an example of discrimination by a court decree.
Level 4: Physical Attack – Physically harming someone because of differences in their race, skin colour or religion.
Level 5: Extermination – An example of this would be Nazi Germany and what Hitler did to the Jewish people. It started from a verbal spat, then avoidance, and later laws were enacted to restrict the rights of certain people especially the Jews.
A country or culture does not automatically move from Level 1 till 5. Even as an individual you do not necessarily increase the levels of prejudice in you, however you do seldomly move between these levels depending on the environment you’re in.
The best solution for a Muslim is to guard his tongue to protect himself from acting upon prejudice.
Being part of the mighty multi-cultural community of the Prophet (sa)
If we want to be in the leadership of dealing with the racial balkanization that we find in our own Muslim community, which ought not to be if we follow the path of Prophet Muhammad (sa), we must follow the 3 R’s to achieve it:
- Reclaim – Reclaim our history, our legacy. From the beginning, the Muslim community was multi-cultured. We all remember Bilal (rtam) who was half Arab and half Ethiopian. We also know Salman Farsi (rtam). From the Seerah, we notice that Prophet Muhammad (sa) loved his people, but the baseline of this love for his people was the love of Allah and the belief that we have been created from one person.
- Regain – We need to regain the moral high ground. We should not adopt the ways or ethos of people who abuse us; we need to maintain the moral high ground and emulate Prophet Muhammad (sa) in the way dealt with people who were unkind and abusive towards him.
- Recalibrate – We need to recalibrate according to this place and this time. The Quran was revealed at a certain time however it is a message for all of humanity. We need to research it and apply its teachings according to this time and age.
We will, Insha’Allah, not only gain leadership in the Muslim community but also in the broader communities too.
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