ONE GOD ONE HUMANITY
How to overcome racial and religious divisions and establish peace in our world
By: Sir Iftikhar Ahmad Ayaz, KBE, OBE, PhD.
Part – 1
Whether one believes in a God or not, the reality we see facing us is that humanity is divided. It is divided across many lines, ranging from racial divisions, disparities between rich and poor and differing cultural and religious affiliations. And whilst many recognise that prejudice, discrimination and oppression come in many shapes and forms, a large number of influential commentators erroneously blame religion or God for most of the conflicts and social tensions that arise. This is especially the case in the Western world.
We may possibly have reached a point where this misinformed opinion needs to be challenged and examined more robustly. The social unrest and racial riots in the US and elsewhere triggered by the brutal killing of George Floyd, has shown that social unrest and tension has nothing to do with religion but everything to do with politics, social injustice and racial discrimination and in many cases outright oppression. George Floyd’s name is now known around the globe, and his death may well have awakened a desire in people to question more deeply what divides us? And what can unite humanity?
The death of George Floyd would normally just have been another statistic; however, the extraordinary cruelty of George Floyd’s killing was captured on video, circulated widely, and it has shocked many in the world. Floyd, a 46 year old black man, was restrained by a white police officer, kneeling on the neck of Floyd for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, whilst Floyd was handcuffed, lying face down in the street, begging for his life and repeatedly saying “I cant breathe”. A second and third officer further restrained Floyd while a fourth prevented bystanders from intervening.
After videos made by witnesses and security cameras became public, all four officers were fired the following day, none of the police officers were initially questioned or charged for Floyd’s death. This triggered demonstrations and protests in more than 75 U.S. cities and around the world against brutality, racism, and lack of and political accountability.
The social injustice and discrimination exposed by George Floyd’s death is part of the historical civil rights struggle and has been taken on board by the civil rights group ‘Black Lives Matter’- a group set up in 2013 following another very public killing of a black person by the police. As support grows for the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, many societies are being forced to reassess the racial divisions and injustices that exist in their societies and to look at the role and contribution of many legendary figures who played a key role in the slave trade and racial discrimination in the past.
Europe and North America which dominated the world in the past via colonialism and imperialism, is feeling the heat of the protests being led by the Black Lives Matter movement. Demands are growing to rewrite history and remove the statues and names of slave traders, imperialists, conquerors and explorers such as Christopher Columbus, Cecil Rhodes and Belgium’s King Leopold II.
Even some of the universities have become a stage for the ongoing protests. At the University of Oxford, protesters have demanded the removal of a statue of Rhodes, the Victorian imperialist who served as prime minister of the Cape Colony in southern Africa.
The Roots of Racial Discrimination
Prejudicial attitudes have existed between races for thousands of years, but systematized racial oppression first arose in the 1600s along with the introduction of capitalism. Although colonial exploitation and slavery were widespread before this period, slaves were usually taken as a result of military conquest. However, when European traders discovered that their superior technology gave them a tremendous advantage in Africa, including firearms and their sailing ships, they began to plunder Africa’s wealth and take slaves.
Expanding European empires in the New World lacked one major resource- a work force. In most cases the indigenous peoples had proved unreliable either dying on the battlefield or dying from diseases brought over from Europe. The Europeans themselves were unsuited to the climate and suffered under tropical diseases. Africans, on the other hand, were excellent workers: they often had experience of agriculture and keeping cattle, they were used to a tropical climate, resistant to tropical diseases, and they could be “worked very hard” on plantations or in mines. The large scale and profitable management of sugar, tobacco and cotton plantations would not have been possible without the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The exact numbers of Africans shipped overseas during the slave trade are hotly debated – estimates range between 10 and 28 million. What is undisputed is the degree of savage cruelty endured by men, women and children. Up to 20% of those chained in the holds of the slave ships died before they even reached their destination.
Participation in the Transatlantic Slave Trade stretched across Europe, beginning with the Portuguese and Spanish and closely followed by the Dutch, French and English. The enslavement of Africans by the English reached proportions that were not known before and England was home to the most famous and important trading company – the Royal Africa Company, set up in 1672. Individuals from the country’s ruling classes, from the monarchy, to MPs, politicians and merchants who went on to found some of England’s economic monuments such as the Bank of England, were involved in the enslavement of Africans for great profit. It is debated as to whether this was the decisive factor in Europe’s Industrial Revolution, however, the trading in enslaved Africans certainly fueled the economic development of Europe on a massive scale.
There is much said and written nowadays about the influx of immigrants into Europe from the old colonial lands. It should not be forgotten that even after the colonial period Europeans continued to emigrate, largely to countries which they claimed to have “discovered”. (A.Giddons, Socio.P261)
Culture of White Supremacy
White Europeans and Americans who participated in the slave industry tried to justify their economic exploitation of black people by creating a “scientific” theory of white superiority and black inferiority. In 1795, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in his book, On the Natural Variety of Mankind, he divided humanity into five varieties. He associated each with a particular geographic area—Negro (African), Mongolian (Asian), Malay (Southeast Asia), American Indian (American), and Caucasian (European). Blumenbach introduced the word Caucasian “to describe the variety of mankind—the Georgian—that had originated on the southern slopes of Mount Caucasus.” This, to Blumenbach, was the most beautiful race, and he said it must be “considered as the primate or intermediate of these five principal races.” Other races represented “a degeneration from the original type.”
These were not the isolated opinions of a few scientists, many other scientists, including Louis Agassiz, the greatest biologist of mid-nineteenth-century America, argued that God had created blacks and whites as separate species. Samuel George Morton, an American anthropologist, also theorized in the mid-1800s that intelligence is linked to brain size. After measuring a vast number of skulls from around the world, he concluded that whites have larger skulls than other races and are therefore “superior.”
Not surprisingly, those who questioned scientists like Morton were ignored or marginalized. German professor Friedrich Tiedemann attempted to replicate Morton’s work during this period but could not reproduce the results. He also found no evidence for the racial hierarchy—a kind of racial ladder on which Caucasians always stood at the top and Africans at the bottom—that Morton had claimed to uncover. Tiedemann’s work did not attract much attention; it was largely ignored or dismissed as “unscientific.”
The work of important scientists gave racism legitimacy. Journalists, teachers, and preachers began to popularize their findings. The defenders of slavery took much comfort from this assertion, for biblical prescriptions of charity and equality did not have to extend across a species boundary. What could an abolitionist say? Science had shone its cold and dispassionate light upon the subject. Thomas Jefferson (1743– 1826)- American Founding Father who served as the third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809 contributed significantly to “scientific racism”, describing black people as:
In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection… Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one [black] could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous… I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.
Despite the abolition of slavery in the 1860’s, the life of African Americans in the US has been full of hardship, even after the rise of the Civil Rights movement led by charismatic figures like Dr Martin Luther King and Malcolm X (Ell-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz) in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Between 1955 and 1968, acts of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience, produced crisis situations and productive dialogues between activists and government authorities. Federal, state, and local governments, businesses, and communities often had to respond immediately to these situations, which highlighted the inequities faced by African Americans across the country. Sadly, both Dr King and Malcolm X were assassinated in mysterious circumstances. Despite the struggles and widespread racial discrimination, the African American community produced some outstanding international figures including Muhammad Ali, and Barak Obama the first black President of the USA elected in 2009. However, it would seem from the grievances expressed by the Black Lives Matter movement and the George Floyd case very little has changed for the average black person. The dream of Dr Martin Luther King seems to have faded into a memory of the past.
I say to you today, my friends. So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow. I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”. [Dr Martin Luther King]
The lives of famous Muslims like the legendary Muhammad Ali have helped many in the US and the Western world to have a wider and deeper understanding of the role of Islam in the modern world. In the latter part of his life, Malcolm understood the role Islam could play in healing some of the divisions in the US and the modern world. In his famous letter during the pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca he wrote:
“This pilgrimage to the Holiest of Cities has been a unique experience for me, but one which has made me the recipient of numerous unexpected blessings beyond my wildest dreams………
Never have I been so highly honoured and never had such honour and respect made me feel more humble and unworthy. Who would believe that such blessing could be heaped upon an American Negro!!! (But) in the Muslim World, when one accepts Islam and ceases to be white or Negro, Islam recognizes all men as Men because the people here in Arabia believe that God is One, they believe that all people are also One, and that all our brothers and sisters are One Human Family.
I have never before witnessed such sincere hospitality and the practice of true brotherhood as I have seen it here in Arabia. In fact, all I have seen and experienced on this pilgrimage has inspired me to “re-arrange” much of thoughts and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This “adjustment to reality” wasn’t too difficult for me because despite my firm conviction in whatever I believe, I have always tried to keep an open mind, which is absolutely necessary to reflect and must go hand in hand for an intelligent quest for truth.
There are Muslims here of all colours and from every part of this earth. During the past days here in Mecca while understanding the rituals of the Hajj, I have eaten from the same plate, drank from the same glass and slept on the same bed or rug used by the Kings, potentates and other forms of rulers, with fellow Muslims whose skin was the whitest of white, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, and whose hair was the blondest of blond – I could look into their blue eyes and see that they regarded me as the same, because their faith in One God (Allah) had actually removed “white” from their mind, which automatically changed their attitude and their behaviour (towards) people of other colours. Their belief in Oneness made them so different from American whites that their colours played no part in my mind or in my dealing with them……
If white Americans could accept the religion of Islam, if they could accept the Oneness of God (Allah) they too could then sincerely accept the Oneness of Man, and cease to measure others always in terms of their “difference in colour”. And with racism now plaguing America like an incurable cancer, all thinking Americans should be more respectful towards Islam as an already proven solution to the race problem.”
Equality of Humanity-the Message of Islam
The message of Islam is for the whole of humanity and when this message was delivered in the form of the Holy Quran by the Prophet of Islam, God Almighty made it absolutely clear, that all of mankind share their origins and are part of One Humanity. God Almighty says in the Holy Quran:
“O mankind, We have created you from a male and a female; and We made you into tribes and sub-tribes for the sake of easy recognition. Verily, the most honourable among you, in the sight of Allah, is the most righteous among you. Surely, Allah is All-Knowing, All-Aware.” (49:14)
Islam takes note of the diversities of race, colour, language and wealth etc, which serve their own useful purposes in the social scheme, and describes them as Signs of God for those who hear and possess knowledge and wisdom. However, none of these confer any privilege or impose any disability.
Shortly before his death, Prophet Muhammad delivered a sermon during the Hajj, in the Year 10 AH of the Islamic Calendar or 632 CE, which came to be known as his “Farewell Sermon”. The farewell sermon was reminder to his followers- all people are born equal.
Praising, and thanking God, the Prophet, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him, said:
“O People, lend me an attentive ear, for I know not whether after this year, I shall ever be amongst you again. Therefore, listen to what I am saying to you very carefully and take these words to those who could not be present here today……
All mankind is from Adam and Eve. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab; a white has no superiority over a black, nor does a black have any superiority over a white; [none have superiority over another] except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to yourselves.
Remember, one day you will appear before God and answer for your deeds. So beware, do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone”
The meanings found in this sermon are indeed astounding, touching upon some of the most important rights God has over humanity, and humanity has over each other. Though the Prophet’s soul has left this world, his words are still living in the hearts of true Muslims.
It should be obvious from this sermon and the life and practice of the Holy Prophet of Islam that people of all nationalities and races are equal according to the teachings of Islam and they should be granted equal rights without any discrimination or prejudice. This is the key and golden principle that lays the foundation of harmony between different groups and nations, and for the establishment of peace.
However, today we find that there is division and separation between powerful and weaker nations, between Western Christian nations and Muslim nations, between Asian nations and Western nations, between followers of different religious groups and differences within nations between blacks and whites etc.
The Holy Quran, perhaps speaking of this age, states:
“We bring to witness that age when man as a whole would be in a state of loss. Except for those few who believe and do good deeds and exhort others to the truth and admonish others to be patient” (103:2-4)
Modern man is desperately in search of peace at a personal level and would dearly like to establish peace and harmony at a national and international level. According to Islam true peace can only be achieved by submitting to and conforming with the will of the Creator and sustainer of the universe. The Holy Quran states that God is “the Source of Peace and the Bestower of Security” (59:24) and Muslims are instructed to greet each other with “Peace be upon you”, and to extend this gesture to the ignorant as the Holy Quran says:
“The servants of the Gracious God are those who walk on the earth in a dignified manner, and when the ignorant address them, they say, ‘Peace!’ (25:64)
The establishment and maintenance of peace and security must be the constant objective of mankind regardless of their background or position.
Every pursuit and activity which has a tendency to disturb the peace is severely condemned and so Muslims are instructed “Do not promote disorder in the earth after peace has been established” (7:56-57). Domination of one group by another in the domestic sphere or in the international sphere is a potent cause of disturbance of peace, and is strongly condemned by Islam. Whenever such an attempt is made, God’s purpose works for the uplift of those who are dominated or oppressed. The Quran states:
“There are those who talk glibly and plausibly on all subjects and call God to witness as to the sincerity of their motives and intentions, and yet they constantly promote dissension by their persistence in magnifying differences and disputes, and when they happen to wield authority they run about in the land seeking to create disorder, which destroys harvests and entails severe suffering and hardship upon men. Allah loves not such conduct.” (2:205-206).
To be continue……….