Hugh Fitzgerald: Yunique Saafir: A Convert Impressed with “Islam’s Emphasis on Racial Equality”

A story recently appeared about one Yunique Saafir, a teenager from Jamaica living in Brooklyn, who recently converted to Islam. She was attracted, she said, because her mother had joined the Nation of Islam, and seemed happy in her choice, and Yunique decided to follow her example, but apparently joined not the Nation of Islam but, rather, converted to mainstream Islam. She recalls feeling the pull to convert “when she learned about Islam’s emphasis on racial and gender equality.”

There is an ideological  war going on, right here at home, for the hearts and minds of many Americans who, having been misinformed about Islam, convert on the basis of that misinformation, and once in the faith, convince themselves that it is just as they had expected it would be or, in some cases, though they may have started to question some aspects of Islam, remain in the faith out of fear that should they now give up Islam for another faith, or for no faith at all, they could be subject to violent retribution as apostates. It’s not a baseless fear. After all, Muhammad said that “if someone changes his [Islamic] religion, kill him.” Apostates from Islam, a few minutes of googling reveal, have been killed all over this giddy globe for the primal crime of leaving Islam.

There must be, on those same mean streets of Brooklyn that Yunique Saafir inhabits, plenty of storefront churches and their pastors, who are no doubt viewing with alarm the inroads Islam is making among their predominantly Afro-American parishioners. It is up to them to set straight those who are considering conversion, or to bring back to Christianity those who may have already converted. And perhaps we can help make, right here, the case they will need to make.

Yunique Saafir is under the impression that Islam places “emphasis on racial and gender equality.” Let’s start with her belief that Islam emphasizes “racial equality.” She knows about the Qur’an. Does she know about the hadith, which are the stories about what Muhammad said and did, and are almost as important a textual source for Islam as the Qur’an itself? For Muhammad is the Perfect Man (al-insan al-kamil) and the Model of Conduct (uswa hasana); he is to be emulated in all things.

What shall we make of the Hadith that tell or suggest that black people were regarded as inferior? There is, for example, this: “Narrated Anas bin Malik: The Prophet said to Abu-Dhar, ‘Listen and obey (your chief) even if he is an Ethiopian with a head like a raisin.'” If blacks had been regarded as equal to whites, there would have been no need for Muhammad to give this command.  And another: “Ahmad ibn Abi Sulayman, the companion of Sahnun said, ‘Anyone who says that the Prophet was black should be killed.’” (Ibn Musa al-Yahsubi, Qadi ‘Iyad, p. 375).

And there is this from the celebrated Muslim historian Al-Tabari: “Noah prayed that the hair of Ham’s descendants [Africans] would not grow beyond their ears, and that  whenever his [Ham’s] descendants met Shem’s, the latter would enslave them.” (Al-Tabari, Vol. 2, p. 21, p. 21) So it was right and proper to enslave Ham’s descendants, “the people of Ham.”

Why was it so terrible for the Prophet to be called “black”? Because for the Arabs, blacks were unquestionably inferior. And therefore the Prophet Muhammad could not possibly have been black. Such misidentification, according to Ahmad ibn Abi Sulayman, was an insult to the Prophet, and deserved death. And blacks, as descendants of Ham, are fit to be slaves (Shem’s descendants “would enslave them”).

Many of the most famous Arab writers and Islamic scholars were certainly “racists” in the full meaning of that word.

Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) was, among other things, an Islamic jurist, Islamic lawyer, Islamic scholar, Islamic theologian, and hafiz (one who has memorized the entire Qur’an). He is one of the most important figures in Islamic history. Here are two (among many) remarks he makes about black Africans in his Muqaddimah:

Therefore, the Negro nation are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because [Negroes] have little [that is essentially] human and have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated.

Beyond [known peoples of black West Africa] to the south there is no civilization in the proper sense. There are only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings. They live in thickets and caves, and eat herbs and unprepared grain. They frequently eat each other. They cannot be considered human beings.

Ibn Sina or Avicenna (980-1037), was another celebrated figure in Islamic history: a Hafiz, an Islamic psychologist, scholar, and theologian and, by our lights, a racist: “[Blacks are] people who are by their very nature slaves.”

Ibn Qutaybah (828-889), was a renowned Islamic scholar from Kufa, Iraq: “[Blacks] are ugly and misshapen, because they live in a hot country.”

Nasr al-Din al-Tusi (1201-1274), was a Shia Muslim Scholar and Grand Ayatollah:

If (all types of men) are taken, from the first, and one placed after another, like the Negro from Zanzibar, in the Southern-most countries, the Negro does not differ from an animal in anything except the fact that his hands have been lifted from the earth –In no other peculiarity or property – except for what God wished. Many have seen that the ape is more capable of being trained than the Negro, and more intelligent.

[The Zanj (African) differ from animals only in that] their two hands are lifted above the ground,… Many have observed that the ape is more teachable and more intelligent than the Zanj.

Al-Muqaddasi (945/946-1000) was a medieval Muslim geographer:

Of the neighbors of the Bujja, Maqdisi had heard that “there is no marriage among them; the child does not know his father, and they eat people — but God knows best. As for the Zanj, they are people of black color, flat noses, kinky hair, and little understanding or intelligence.” [Kitab al-Bad’ wah-tarikh, vol.4]

Al-Masudi (896-956), was a Muslim historian and geographer, known as the “Herodotus of the Arabs”:

Galen says that merriment dominates the black man because of his defective brain, whence also the weakness of his intelligence. (Al-Masudi, Muruj al-dhahab)

Ibn al-Faqih was a Muslim historian and geographer:

A man of discernment said: The people of Iraq … do not come out with something between blonde, buff and blanched coloring, such as the infants dropped from the wombs of the women of the Slavs and others of similar light complexion; nor are they overdone in the womb until they are burned, so that the child comes out something between black, murky, malodorous, stinking, and crinkly-haired, with uneven limbs, deficient minds, and depraved passions, such as the Zanj, the Somali, and other blacks who resemble them. The Iraqis are neither half-baked dough nor burned crust but between the two. (from his Mukhtasar Kitab al-Buldan, 903 AD)

These are just a small sample of the racist remarks made by outstanding figures in Islamic intellectual history. None of them, of course, are known to Yunique Saafir. Muslims now would prefer not to bring such remarks to the notice of Unbelievers, lest they think ill of Islam. But a page that reproduced  this material — along with other hadith that were not quoted — could be made available for distribution, particularly to African-Americans, who are targeted for conversion, and also uploaded to the Internet.  Yunique Saafir both needs, and deserves, to  become aware of the racism that the most important figures in Muslim Arab culture exhibited.

Yunique apparently is also unaware of the Arab Slave Trade, where Arab cruelty toward black Africans was so obviously in evidence. What does she know about this traffic that involved, over 1300 years, 100 million black Africans? That trade began earlier, and ended later (and only under Western pressure), and claimed many more victims, than the Atlantic Slave Trade. The Arab trade consisted mainly of capturing black boys in the bush and castrating them on site, then herding them to the slave markets of Islam. Only about 10% survived both the castration and the difficult journey, according to Jan Hogedoorn in his study “The Hideous Trade.” Estimates of the numbers involved are that 17 million Africans made it alive to be sold as slaves; if we take the estimate of Jan Hogedoorn that that represented 10% of those originally seized, that would mean, if only black boys were taken, 170 million black Africans were captured by African slavers.

But while the boys made up the greatest number of slaves, some women and girls were also among those seized. They would not have undergone castration, and thus a greater percentage of them would have survived. It is likely, then, that fewer Africans — say 100-120 million — might have been involved in the Arab slave trade. The latest estimate of the number of slaves who died en route to the Islamic slave markets was made by John Alembellah Azumah in his 2001 book, The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa; he estimates that over 80 million black people died en route to the Islamic slave markets, with about 20 million surviving, for a total of 100 million. In the Atlantic Slave Trade, the scholarly consensus is that about 12.5 million slaves were taken, and of those, 10.7 million survived the Middle Passage. In other words, the Arab Slave Trade involved at least eight times as many slaves as did the Atlantic Slave Trade. Are we to conclude that this largest and cruelest of slave trades had nothing to do with how the Arabs thought of blacks (see the many quotes above)? Nothing to do with “race”? Were Yunique Saafir to learn about that huge Arab Slave Trade, that ended only because of the efforts of non-Muslims, and even today blacks continue to be enslaved by Arabs in Mali, Mauritania, and most recently, in Libya, and learn, too, about the rampant anti-black racism among Muslim Arabs that both justified and promoted it, she just might reconsider her innocent belief in “Islam’s emphasis on racial equality.”

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Halal Bacon

5 years ago

OK raisin-head

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R. Arandas

5 years ago

Even the early Muslims generally tended to look down on non-Arabs, especially blacks, many of whom they enslaved and forcibly converted:
https://www.amazon.com/Race-Slavery-Middle-East-Historical/dp/0195053265

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Dennis

5 years ago

History has taught us that the differences between people, especially when societies tend to ghettoize, and therefore make their differences known, is likely the single most compelling factor in creating racism between those of different cultures, religions and ethnic groups. It seems to me that these problems are built into the “nature” of the human race. While I know of no other religious belief system that promotes racist slavery like Islam, the problem with racism goes very deep. One would be very naïve to not admit that the differences between people is even today an existing problem within our society that causes people to be affected by their individual prejudices. Though things concerning racism has come a long way towards equality since the early 20th century, the problems emanating from “racism” still exist to some extent today. To not recognize that Islam is, in and of itself, a primary promoter of hate and racism, is to turn a blind eye to reality. This belief system is a scourge on this world, and its people must accept that as a concrete fact; yet, they continue to avoid that reality. The sooner the world accepts that reality, the sooner this world will learn to deal with that reality. We must all open our eyes and learn to see that this racism is not only without merit, but that any belief system that promotes “racism’ is an affront to GOD and to humanity.

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Cai

5 years ago

Reply to  Dennis

‘It seems to me that these problems are built into the “nature” of the human race.’

It is called tribalism.

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Mahou Shoujo

5 years ago

Yunique Saafir here is a partial list of muslim’s women rights under islam. How do you see this as anytime approaching “equality”?

• Women are forbidden from becoming president or judge.

• There is no age limit for marriage of girls. The marriage contract at any age after birth and consummation of marriage at age 8 or 9.

• A husband has the right to beat his wife and does not have to say why to her family or police.

• Rebelliousness on the part of the wife nullifies the husband’s obligation to support her, gives him permission to beat her and keep her from leaving the home.

• Divorce is only in the hands of the husband and is as easy as saying: “I divorce you,” and is effective even if the husband says he did not intend it.

• A wife has no right to divorce her husband, even if he is polygamous, with additional wives.

• A man is allowed to have sex with slave women and women captured in battle, and if the enslaved woman is married, her marriage is annulled.

• There is no community property between a husband and his wife/wives.

• A woman inherits half what a man inherits.

• Parents have the legal right to perform female genital mutilation on minor daughters.

• A man must pay the woman dowry to be given in exchange for his right to her sexual organs.

• A rapist may only be required to pay money (dowry) without marrying the rape victim.

• A man is allowed to have sex with slave women and women captured in battle, and if the enslaved woman is married her marriage is annulled.

• A woman’s testimony in court is half the value of a man.

• A woman loses custody of her children if she remarries.

• To prove rape a woman must have four male witnesses.

• A woman must cover every inch of her body, which is considered awrah (a sexual organ). Exposing face is allowed by most, but not all Sharia schools.

• A Muslim man will not be prosecuted if he kills his wife if caught in the act of adultery. However, the opposite is not true since husband “could be married to the woman he was caught with.” Thus loyalty is only expected from wife, and not the husband.

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MAS

5 years ago

Ahh another useful idiot. Wish they were an endangered species but it seems not to be…

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Michelle

5 years ago

Another muslim convent who is too stupid to have even vaguely looked at the Koran. But has listened to and swallowed imam lies. Well defines “stupid” and her addition to their gene pool will add to the usual downward drift.

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Alleged-Comment

5 years ago

As long as it against white man they don’t give a rip what the Koran says. This is about HATE. Their book is about HATE. Their religion is about HATE.

So long as it brings down white man, they’re OK with Islam. However, with white man gone the Negro will be enslaved again and many made into eunuchs. Dèjà vu again. 😏

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MAS

5 years ago

Reply to  Alleged-Comment

The bride and I experienced that hostility last night at an In & Out. Sat too close to a black family it seems, the atmosphere became instantly stiff. Their seven year old daughter glared at me the whole time. Maybe it was my cowboy hat…

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Mike Knox

5 years ago

Unfortunately Yunique is not unique in swallowing lies. I can only imagine how she will feel when she is married to one of those wonderful believers in “equality” poor foolish girl

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D

VTS

5 years ago

Islam’s emphasis on racial and gender equality? What about african slave trade perpetrated by arabs to this day. Ask those slaughtered in Nigeria and allover the African continent by islamic troglodytes.

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Ohio Perspective

5 years ago

racial equality?
Go visit the Gulf Region. See how Gulf Arabs (muslims) treat other muslims. Muslim servants commit suicide because they are treated as slaves (their employers hold the worker’s passports). Pakistanis (also muslims) are treated as low level workers, do not associated with them, and are not treated equally.

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TangoUniform2

5 years ago

Islam is borrowing the same tactics the DNC uses to draw the uninformed into their fold.

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wall poster

5 years ago

damn , what a twisted mind……it must be instant insanity to walk in your sandals…….you must be pretty smart though…….to be able to juggle all that nonsense in your noggin and still be able to function

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