What Barack Obama Doesn’t Know About Islam, Slavery and Black Africans

Barack Obama clearly had no idea, when he made his Cairo speech, of how Muslim Arabs regarded black Africans; I doubt if he has learned more about it since. The Arabs regarded the black Africans with contempt. In the Hadith of al-Bukhari, we find the remarkable statement that “Anyone who says that the Prophet is black should be killed.” Elsewhere in the Hadith, Muhammad says “’Whoever wants to see Satan let him take a look at Nabtal b. al-Harith!’ He was a sturdy black man with long flowing hair, inflamed eyes, and dark ruddy cheeks.”

In the same vein, the Prophet sent Khalid bin al-Walid in Ramadan 8 A.H., to a spot called Nakhlah, “‎where there was a goddess called Al-‘Uzza venerated by the Quraish and Kinanah . . . On ‎his return, the Prophet asked him if he had seen anything there, to which Khalid gave a ‎negative answer . . . He went back again and there he saw a black woman, naked with torn ‎hair. Khalid struck her with his sword into two parts. He returned and narrated the story ‎to the Prophet, who then confirmed the fulfillment of the task.”‎

Sa’d bin Zaid Al-Ashhali, another follower of Muhammad, was sent in the same month and on the same mission to Al-‎Mushallal to destroy an idol, Manat, respected by both the Al-Aws and Al-Khazraj tribes. Here ‎also a black woman, naked with messy hair appeared, wailing and beating on her chest. ‎Sa’d immediately killed her.

Clearly Muhammad was not at all bothered by these two unprovoked murders by his followers of “black women.” He greeted the news from one of the killers as being part of the “fulfillment of his task” – the task assigned to him by Muhammad.

There are three hadith in Al-Bukhari where Muslims are told to obey a ruler, even if he were a black man, as here: “Narrated Anas bin Malik: Allah’s Apostle said, ‘You should listen to and obey, your ruler even if he was an Ethiopian (black) slave whose head looks like a raisin.’” (Ibn Musa al-Yahsubi, Qadi ‘Iyad, p.375).

And there is this from the celebrated 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)

Why was it so terrible for the Prophet to be called “black”? Because for the Arabs, blacks were unquestionably inferior. Such misidentification, according to Ahmad ibn Abi Sulayman, was an insult to the Prophet, and deserved death. And blacks, as descendants of Ham, were fit only to be slaves (Shem’s descendants “would enslave them”).

Many of the most famous Arab writers and Islamic scholars were unambiguously “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 disparaging remarks, among so many that 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, who claimed that “[Blacks] are ugly and misshapen, because they live in a hot country.”

Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī (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, Al-Muqaddasi 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 tiny sample of the hair-raising racist remarks made by noted figures in Islamic history.

Obama would no doubt be quite startled to learn about how the learned men of Islam viewed black Africans.

And now that we have seen how absurd Obama’s claims about Islam’s “religious tolerance” and “racial equality” turn out to be, let’s look next at his list of the supposed “achievements” of Islamic civilization.

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