Muslims... Come Join this thread!

Discussion in 'Islam' started by Brocktoon, May 15, 2004.

  1. Ajay0

    Ajay0 Guest

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    There are Islamic sects like the Ahmediyas and Sufis who have a lot of depth of spirituality and refined culture in them.

    The teaching of universal brotherhood in Islam is a glorious teaching. In Christianity, you can find distinctions and antagonism between races, say black and white and yellow, but that is not the case in Islam where the sole differentiating factor is character and merit and not race or creed.

    The Kuwaiti royalty are descendants of black slaves. Balban was a muslim slave who through sheer merit became a Sultan or king.
     
  2. BlackBillBlake

    BlackBillBlake resigned HipForums Supporter

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    That appears to be a contradiction. If Muslims didn't ever judge by race or creed, how come they thought it ok to enslave so many black Africans?
     
  3. Ajay0

    Ajay0 Guest

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    But they had also enslaved a lot of white europeans as well captured by them in their wars in the medieval ages , and so also with the people of other races. I don't think there was any bias against the blacks.
     
  4. BlackBillBlake

    BlackBillBlake resigned HipForums Supporter

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    It's questionable as to whether they considered Blacks to be inferior and thus fair game.Probably they did. But the very fact that they considered slavery to be OK is itself an indictment.
     
  5. anasrahman

    anasrahman Members

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    i cant give a answer , bcs the admin may ban me , it happened before .
     
  6. Ajay0

    Ajay0 Guest

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    True, but there were also provisions for slaves, to gain their freedom by accepting Islam and purchasing their freedom from their masters.

    In addition, manumission of slaves was encouraged in Islam as a meritorious deed and expiation of sin.

    Great Britain outlawed slavery through legislation in 1833 ,which is praiseworthy, but the Americans had to wage a bloody civil war to end slavery. Also there were no religious provision for a black slave to be free even if he is a christian or by purchasing his freedom. It was secular law that ended black slavery in the west.
     
  7. BlackBillBlake

    BlackBillBlake resigned HipForums Supporter

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    In the 1950's there were evidently some 450,000 slaves held in Saudi Arabia. In 1953 slaves from Qatar along with their masters attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth.

    So far as I'm aware, the British often bought slaves from Arab traders in Africa, thus making it impossible for such slaves to either accept Islam or buy their freedom. It would be interesting to know how a slave could hope to acquire enough money to buy their freedom. Also to covert would be to accept an internal rather than external form of slavery.

    In April 1998, Elikia M’bokolo, wrote in Le Monde diplomatique. "The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the Muslim countries (from the ninth to the nineteenth)." He continues: "Four million slaves exported via the Red Sea, another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean"[95]

    [SIZE=11.2px](source:wiki[/SIZE]) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade

    I'm not saying here that the Arabs were the only guilty ones - far from it, but 2 wrongs don't make a right. A religion that allowed slavery right up to the 1950's has to be viewed with suspicion IMO.
     
  8. Ajay0

    Ajay0 Guest

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    Slavery was a fact in Islam and I am not denying it. It is a fact now as well, especially in ISIS controlled areas.

    The point I am making is that any slave in Islam, provided he possessed sufficient intelligence and merit, could climb the ladder up from slavery to freedom and even marry the Sultan's daughter as well if needed.

    As I said the Kuwaiti royalty are the descendants of black slaves and balban himself was a slave who became a sultan.

    Are there any such examples of christian blacks who attained freedom and positions of sovereignty just through sheer merit.
     
  9. Ajay0

    Ajay0 Guest

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    Secular law and institutions have not grown up in the islamic world as it has in the western world. If secularism has not grown in the west as well, many barbaric practices would be in place now as well in the west.
     
  10. BlackBillBlake

    BlackBillBlake resigned HipForums Supporter

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    You're probably right about that. However, given the appetite for sharia law in some Muslim countries, it doesn't look at times like much progress has been made in that area. Hence we still see barbaric punishments etc being administered in many Muslim countries in line with the religious tradition.

    I find it shocking that in the decade in which I was born so many slaves were still being held in Saudi Arabia, a country pretty much set up by the British after WWI. I also find it reprehensible that the establishment here would entertain Sheiks from Qatar with their slaves at a national event like a coronation. Surprising though how the thirst for oil can modify ethical considerations. I assume that at the very same time they were putting on trial the Nazis for their use of slavery, the British establishment was cosying up to slave owners in Arabia.
     
  11. stormountainman

    stormountainman Soy Un Truckero

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    Islam banned slavery around the year 600AD, so anyone who engages in slavery is considered a sinner, not a Muslim. They may have been born to a Muslim family and given a Muslim name, but no more Muslim than an Asian carp.
     
  12. stormountainman

    stormountainman Soy Un Truckero

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    Wrong...all wrong. The Saudi Royals are black in part. Anwar Sadat was black. Bashir in Sudan is black. I lived in the Middle East. They do not see the world in Black and White like the Brits do.
     
  13. stormountainman

    stormountainman Soy Un Truckero

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    The slave museum in Washington DC contains proof that some of the slaves in America were Arabic speaking Muslims who knew how to write in Arabic and leave us a record of their own life, in their own handwriting.
     
  14. BlackBillBlake

    BlackBillBlake resigned HipForums Supporter

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    Perhaps we're getting our information on this from sources that contradict each other.

    Slavery right up into the 1950's says Wiki. Banned 600 AD you say. During the lifetime of the prophet.

    Hard to account for any Islamic slavery if that is so. But nonetheless nobody disputes they did have slaves.
     
  15. stormountainman

    stormountainman Soy Un Truckero

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    No argument from me. I know some Middle Eastern people did deal in human beings, from all races not just from the Negro people. The people doing that were not considered Muslim, nor allowed to claim that they are Muslim. The were regarded as sinners, just like ISIS. Several hundred years ago the population of the Middle East was not exclusively Arab and Muslim. There were Jews and Christians as well. They had money and sailing ships. They did not go down town to the market and buy slaves. They most likely raided remote villages, in the same way the British did. There are islands off the coast of Africa that the British navy took and relaocated the entire population to another place and forced them to work. The pirates of the Barbary Coast were descendants of Vandals who were Germanic tribes, not Arabs. The term Shanghied meant that you got kidnapped by the British and forced to work as a slave on their ship. The English speaking people had open slave markets in Charleston South Carolina, Savanah Georgia, and even in New York. The Spanish took the North American Indians and forced them to work as slaves in the gold mines of the Rocky Mountains. The Comanche Indians kidnapped White children from Texas farms and made them work, or sold them for modern weapons. So, this matter covers just about all of humanity.
     
  16. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    As us often the case, we can often find exceptions to generalizations, and the ideal doesn't always match the reality. In Sudan, for example, Nilotic blacks from the South are still sometimes referred to derogatorily as "abeed" (slave), and Jok Maduk Jok,[(2001). "The South-North Population Displacement". War and Slavery in Sudan. ] argues that in practice many are virtually slaves, working at marginal jobs in exploitative relationships with powerful brokers. There you have racial differences superimposed on profound ethnic and religious differences, with a history of decades old and on-going regional conflict. I'd give high marks to Islam for overcoming racial divisions among Muslims, but does this extend to non-Muslims of color, as well? The subject of race in Islam is covered by Habeeb Akande, in Illuminating the Darkness which documents racism against Blacks and North Africans even in Islamic countries, even among scholars, while emphasizing that racism is contrary to Islam and acknowledging "the Elevated Status of Black Africa in Islam" in comparison with alternatives . The author writes on the basis of his own personal experience of discrimination while a student in Egypt. The best part of the book, though, in my opinion, is his showing of the real contributions of North African and dark peoples to Islam and to humanity in general
     
  17. stormountainman

    stormountainman Soy Un Truckero

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    You make a good and valid point Okie, I know there is racisim in the Middle East, and in the Muslim world. It is too common. It does not indicate that the entire population of the area thinks that way. The most serious racisim that I see comes from the Wahabi and Salafi groups. They tend to come from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and Egypt; and, tend to be very rich oil money people. They look down on everyone, not just negros. In some cases, they favor a Wahabi Sunna negro, or say a Shia caucasian. They treat a Sunna Kurd better than a Shia Kurd, or Shia Persian. The Christians of Lebanon look down on the Muslims. The Kurds claim they are of the Aryan race and look down on Arabs of southern Iraq. Concerning the word "Abeed", it has several translations into English. Abeed could mean: Negros, Africans, Slaves, or worshipers. Abeed is plural for Abd, which means a single worshiper. Millions of Muslims have the first name of Abd, or Abdu. For example, the president of Iraq was Abdu El Karim Qassim, and in the USA a great basket Ball star changed his name to Karim Abdul Jabbar. Neither one was a slave. They used their name in devotion to their God. Slavery in the Muslim world was never a big business as it was in America.
     
  18. Irminsul

    Irminsul Valkyrie

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    Hmm. Should probably do some research into the middle eastern slave trade history.... Especially Middle Ages era with the Arab/Muslim slave trades.

    Yeah should probably look into that before saying there wasn't much of a business.

    Old mate, King Lionheart went to put a stop to it. :)
     
  19. stormountainman

    stormountainman Soy Un Truckero

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    Lionheart had nothing to do with slavery. He was lucky, because Saladin let him live. In fact, Lionheart was wounded and Saladin could have finished him off in one second with the sowrd; but, Saladin treated him well. He saw that Lionheart was nursed back to health. After allowing him to heal, he allowed him to go back to his own country. Saladin's forces defeated the Crusaders. That Crusade had nothing do do with slavery. I have done a lot of reading. I have two college degrees. My sisters are teachers in colleges. One of them is a world respected historian who has lectured in places like Oxford, in the UK, and also in Russia, Austria, and Australia. I have been to many Middle Eastern countries and have never seen "historic" slave markets like you see in the USA. Sharia law strictly forbids slavery. So, I think people who got around the law in the Middle East did so by saying a person under their control was a POW or something like that. I have heard that the Ottoman Empire had slavery, but not sure about the source. I also read that places in eastern Africa had slave business. So, my thinking is that it did happen, but not on as large a scale as in America.
     
  20. Irminsul

    Irminsul Valkyrie

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    It's just that when you google Muslim slave trade there's a lot research to be from before the Middle Ages and then through to now. Mind you, I didn't read them or research them, just enough of what I did read told a history of slavery. That's all.
     

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