Why Islam Is the Religion For Black People.

In his lecture, What is the Religion for Black People, Ismael Saleem provides an Islamic critique of Afrocentrism. Ismael Saleem states:

If they believe that the Kemetic Laws were so superior, they should be following that themselves. They should listen to Osiris and Isis and they should be praying to the god of the Ma’at god, right. But they don’t because they are aware that Al-Islam is superior to this but they want to give you spirituality, individualism where you do what you want to, where you decide what the rules and laws are. So, all of us believe what is true and what is false, what is good, what is right and what is wrong and ultimately, we are going in different directions. Again, spirituality can’t unite people as Al-Islam does.

So, Dr. Ben who was a popular, who is a popular a popular afrocentrist and scholar has been mentioned several times and he wrote a book is we the black Jews. So, the name itself talks about the lineage of Black Israelites. The same is true of the doctor that I mentioned earlier Cheikh Anta Diop. He was a Muslim and Dr. Ben writes in his book, The African Origin of Major Western Religion. He says, “I shall show that Judaism, Christianity and Islam or as much African or as they are Asian and in no sense whatsoever are they European”, because at this time that was called Western religions whether it was Christianity, Al-Islam or Judaism.

But as I say, these African scholars and Africans themselves recognize these religions as African in origin because initially, everything; human beings, humanity itself and all religions came from Africa. So, if Adam is our true father and Adam and he came from Africa, then he was learning and teaching Al-lslam in its inception and only thing that happened was the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam perfected this religion.

So, ultimately, this was Al-Islam in its different stages and it was perfected with Prophet Muhammad, it was not began with him so it can’t be the stepchild of any other religion.

And finally, it’s always a topic of provocation when we talk about the slave trade and about slavery. Now, this is one of the things that is used by people who are anti Islam, who are afrocentrist to talk about the slavery and the slave traders saying how this religion isn’t for African-Americans, isn’t for African people.

Now, again, I would suggest to you that the importance of something or the truthfulness of something has nothing to do with the people who adhere to the religion and do things outside of the religion. So, if I say that I’m a Muslim and I sell drugs, you can’t attribute that to Al-Islam, you attribute that to me. The same way if I’m a Christian or Buddhist or whomever, there are Buddhist right now who are killing Muslims, they are massacring them. But we don’t suggest that Buddha taught to massacre Muslims. So in the same sense, Al-Islam does not– though the Arabs were slave traders. In fact, they were slave traders before Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam was ever born.

So, we can’t say this is the Islamic slave trade. It was the Arab slave trade of African-American people but Al-Islam again has no disparity or has no distinction between Black people, White people, Asian people, any of those people. So to suggest that you can’t accept Al-Islam because Arabs even before Prophet Muhammad and after him had slaves is to be disingenuous particularly when adherents to indigenous African religions had slaves.

So, if we are to suggest that Christianity is false because they had slaves when in fact there were people who were Christians who considered themselves Christian who were abolitionists. The abolitionists themselves were using Christianity as a means to fight against slavery.

So to suggest that Christianity and slavery are something that is intertwined and they can’t be pulled apart as something that is false in the same sense of Al-Islam. If that is the case, then you are also saying that all indigenous African religions are also false under the same pretenses. So again, Al-Islam does not promote the persecution of people. In fact, Al-Islam is the antithesis of it. In fact, it says oppression is worse than death, oppression is worse than slaughter. It is better for you to fight and die than to live a life of submission.

So, this is the reason that they didn’t want slaves to continue being Muslims, that’s the reason that they fought and tried to break them and it took conscious of years to break them out of this cycle. In fact, there was laws made for slaves made to suggest any slaves who are from African descent, they could not come to America because they were rounding other slaves up saying to fight against the slave masters. They realizing that their slave, that they are servants to nothing but God. No human beings made them want to fight and persevere.

And when we look back at all the revolts, African Muslims were people who were at the forefront, who was spearheading these things or were in some form of leadership in these roles. If you look at Amistad, you look at the revolts that were done in Brazil, it is all because of the Spirit of Al-Islam. So again, Al-Islam in conjunction with Africans made the Golden Age for Al-Islam. We, African Muslims, are the only group of people who invaded Europe and conquered it for 800 years. So, the combination of them two together is so potent and this is the reason why we must understand and accept Al-Islam.

 

Mr. Campbell was raised attending both the Christian Church and the Muslim Mosque. He was always inquisitive about religion. Around the age of 14, he decided that Islam was the path for him. However, he was rather secretive about his belief due to the negative perception many had of the religion. When Islam became the topic of any discussion, he maintained the Islamic sympathizer role as the son of a Muslim, while being careful not to be identified as a Muslim himself. The stigma surrounding Islam and Muslims only intensified throughout the years, but so too did his desire to announce to the world that ISLAM IS THE TRUTH.

Conveying to Black America What Islam Is

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