Black History Month: The Future

Our greatest challenges lie ahead…

“Whoever controls the images, controls your self-esteem, self-respect, and self-development.  Whoever controls the history, controls the vision.”  -Dr. Leonard Jeffries

Time is a strange thing.  The past was once the future.  The present so rapidly becomes the past.  We only experience the future as a present.  Today is history.  History is not some far-off realm in a dusty book.  We are making it every day, deciding what it will become.  Yet we live for the future.  Today and yesterday are the foundations of tomorrow.  Our pride in the past should be a challenge to achieve even greater accomplishments.  Our historical struggles should be a source or wisdom and caution.

Nothing is greater than the challenges we face today.  The black race, no exaggeration, is being threatened with extinction.  Starvation and famine in Africa, Black-on-black homicide (across the diaspora), higher rates of at-risk factors, disproportionate rates of imprisonment and execution- what do these all point to?  A faster rate of extinction.

But there is a subtler, more insidious side to this, what I call the ‘soft’ genocide.  It is the growing inability to reproduce as a community.  No, I’m not talking about the overhyped phenomenon of interracial marriage.  I’m talking about the emasculation of the Black male, the taking away of his manhood.  A careful distinction should be made between the terms emasculation and effeminization, the latter of which is more commonly used to describe this phenomenon.  Emasculation means to eradicate the male nature and role.  Effeminization means to make a male like a female.  This, the second, is incorrect.  It is not that males are being turned into females;  their behaviors do not match those of most girls or women.  Rather, they are male in the physical (i.e. sex) sense, but no longer live, think or act as males (i.e. gender). They are males, but not men.  They do not guide.  They do not protect.  They neither lead nor follow. They do not achieve.  They do not build or establish.  They either do not reproduce, or fail to participate in the upbringing of their children.  They are eunuchs, who can only serve the agenda of others, but never their own communities.

The current and future result of this is the inability of the Black community to perpetuate its existence as a community in the literal and numerical sense.

This is neither conspiracy nor theory.  You’re about to see a plethora of interviews and footage elaborating it in full detail.

In this video, comedian and actor Dave Chappelle describes the effort to perpetuate emasculated Black images in the media, and how he fought against it.  There are also interviews and candid footage.

You saw it yourself in the video, but let’s take another look at…

Prominent Black Figures who have Played Emasculated Roles

Jamie Foxx, Played female named Lawanda in TV show In Living Color
Cuba Gooding, Jr., Played homosexual art dealer in film As Good as It Gets
Arsenio Hall, Plays women Semmi and Akeem meet in a bar in film Coming to America
Larry Johnson, Athlete (NBA), Played Grandmama in shoe advertisements
Martin Lawrence, Played female in film Big Momma’s House and Sheneneh in TV show Martin
Charlie Murphy, Played homosexual ex-convict in King’s Ransom
Eddie Murphy, Played females in several films, including The Nutty Professor and Norbit
Harold Perrineau, Cross-dressed for dance scene in film Romeo + Juliet (completely
unrelated to play film was based on), transgender character Monica in filmWoman on Top
Tyler Perry, Actor, Played female character Madea in several films
Ving Rhames, Character Marsellus Wallace raped by two white males in film Pulp Fiction
Will Smith, Played homosexual hustler in Six Degrees of Separation
Wesley Snipes, Played cross-dresser in film To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie
Newmar
Chris Tucker, Played effeminate TV show host Ruby Rhod in film The Fifth Element
Various Wayans Brothers, effeminate homosexuals in TV show In Living Color, cross-
dressers in film White Chicks

Now look at this list again:  for Jamie Foxx, Tyler Perry, Ving Rhames and Will Smith, these were their breakout roles!  This is how they made their name as actors!  How many actors of other races have played similar roles in their careers?  The numbers are disproportional.  Something’s going on…

In addition, here is a partial list of Black actors who have displayed their buttocks prominently in Hollywood films.
Taye Diggs- Shower scene in film The Wood
Omar Epps- Shower scene in film The Wood
Cuba Gooding, Jr.- Shower scene in Jerry Maguire
Djimon Hounsou- Protest scene in Amistad, Jail scene in Blood Diamond
Will Smith- Sex scene Six Degrees of Separation
Various Actors- Locker room scenes in Any Given Sunday

Now ask yourself, did this nudity in any way add to the plot?  How many actors of other races have shown their buttocks this way?  The numbers are disproportional.  Again, something’s going on…

Now we come to the disturbing phenomenon of Black male-on-Black male rape popularized in 1990s West Coast Gangsta Rap lyrics.  These are symbolic acts of emasculation, where the active dominant perpetrator relegates the passive victim to the status of a weaker “female”.  This brings up two ironies.  One, gangsta rap is notorious for being homophobic, when in fact it is homo-erotic.  Two, having to “take” another’s manhood only proves that one lacks it..

Some of the biggest names in Rap, as well as many others, were involved.  Here is a very small representative sample.  I won’t reproduce the lyrics here, but you can google the artist and title to see how blatant it is.

Cypress Hill, Ice Cube Killa
Dr. Dre & Snoopp Doggy Dogg, F*** wit Dre Day (released as “Dre Day”), reached U.S. Billboard #8
Ice Cube, No Vaseline
UNLV, Drag ‘Em In Tha River

Black men making songs about raping each other??!!  Does any other culture do this?  Something is definitely going on…

School psychologist, renowned psychologist and lecturer Umar Johnson details the the systematic emasculation of Black male in the education system, the indoctrination of self-hatred, and why it’s happening.

Part 1

Part 2

There’s a popular saying:  ”The Black man is an endangered species”. Think about it:  disproportionate imprisonment, high homicide rates, high health risk factors, a culture of self-hatred, emasculation…- the black man is being eradicated in existence and essence.  A community with too few productive males is not viable;  it can’t survive.  It cannot defend itself. A community that hates the basis on which it should unite- it’s identity- will crumble.  A community that doesn’t produce leaders will lead itself to destruction.  A community that glorifies self-destruction will amplify it.

The phenomenon of emasculating Black males is not just important for African-Americans, but the entire African diaspora.  I’ve interacted with Black communities in Arabia, Australia and the UK, and African-American culture has, by far, the greatest influence on diaspora communities.  Based on what I have observed of African immigrants, the same can only be true for Africa itself, and many Africans I’ve met and interviewed have confirmed this view.  As Black America goes, so goes the Black world.

Human history is not a story of evolution, but of de-evolution.  We did not evolve from apes;  we have devolved into something worse than them.  For apes, nor indeed any species, do not do to themselves what we humans do to ourselves.  Look at us.  Our entire history is that of a survival-of-the-fittest, perpetual end-game of envy and greed.  Even the most selfish individual realizes that he or she can get more with a group.  Once groups grow too large, everyone’s share gets smaller.  So divisions have to be made.  Reasons to deny rightful claims have to be invented.  Racism is only one of them.  It’s a by-product.  Never thing that it exists in a vacuum.  It is a direct result of people’s need to justify their destruction of another people for the purpose of gain.  Greed and envy aren’t good enough motivators, you can’t get enough people to openly admit to those.  We don’t like to think of ourselves that way.

In that sense, what is happening against Blacks is not an emotional, blind sort of hatred.  It’s practical.  They don’t hate us because we’re Black.  They hate us because they’ve fooled themselves into thinking they need to.

Humanity has devised a simple, vile calculus.  Africa has every imaginable resource, but non-Africans want it for themselves.  There and elsewhere, Africans are capable of competing, and as a unified community they have the potential to prevail.  In this survival “game”, there are many ways to win.  You can excel, you can cheat, you can sabotage the other team, you can win by forfeit if they don’t show up with enough players or at all.  You can decrease the other team’s talent pool.  And while you’re doing this, you find that it is easier for them to be beaten by themselves than for you to beat them.  So you eliminate their leaders.  You attack their sense of camaraderie.  You encourage them to self-destruct.  And if you’re luck, and it works, you watch them fall apart while you score goal after goal, then you tell them they’re losing not because they’re an inferior team, but because each one of them, individually, is inferior to every single one of you.  They’re trying it all, but they can only do it if we let them…

…so don’t.  Fathers, don’t be absent.  Know that you are the foundation on which your children stand.  Mothers, don’t emasculate or effeminize your sons.  Encourage them to stand.  Those who know must teach.  Those who read must write.  Those who can must set the example, build and establish.  Black History is important because it is the foundation upon which our future stands.  So learn it and take a stand.  Re-design your future, and never, ever perpetuate the vicious cycle being perpetrated upon us.  We are the next generation’s history.  Don’t let them look back at it, at us, and say, as Soledad Brother George Jackson said to his mother:

“You never wanted me to be a man… You don’t want us to resist and defeat our enemies.  What is wrong with you, Mama? No other mama in history has acted the way you act under stress situations.  I won’t be a good boy ever.”

A man, a true man, is the one thing the world truly respects, and the only thing it truly hates.  Ready them…

Muhammad (May Allah Honor him and Grant him peace) said,“Men would be perished because they obeyed women (in vanity).” (Ahmad)

Anas ibn Malik said, “I shall tell you a narration which I heard from the Messenger of Allah, and which no-one will tell you after me. I heard him say, ‘Among the signs of the Hour [of Judgement] will be the disappearance of knowledge and the appearance of ignorance. Adultery will be prevalent and the drinking of wine will be common. The number of men will decrease and the number of women will increase until there will be fifty women to be looked after by one man.’ ”  This narration was reported in the two Sahihs from the hadith of ‘Abd Rabbihi.

The Messenger of Allah (pbuh) declared,“Allah curses men who imitate women and women who imitate men.” (Bukhari)
He (pbuh) also said, “May Allah curse the effeminate man and the masculine woman.” (Bukhari)
On the authority of Abu Hurairah (may Allah be pleased with him) who said that the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) said,
“Allah curses a woman who wears a men’s clothing and a man who wears a woman’s dress.” (Abu Dawud)

Related Posts:

The Feminization of Black Men is Soft Genocide in Action

See Also:

African Holocaust
African Holocaust (Maafa) is a non-profit civil society dedicated to the progressive study of African history and culture. The society is composed of African scholars/academics who share the desire to represent and restore an authentic, honest, plural and balanced study of the African experience, past and present.

Rasta Livewire
The place for Africa on the net, Rasta Livewire is a leading blog that provides in-depth and varying viewpoints from Africa and the African Diaspora.

Black History Month: The Black Prophets

Color doesn’t matter. To Allaah, God. But it does to a lot of people. This article seeks to counter racism and prejudice against dark skin by showing that according to Christian, Jewish and Islamic sources, some of the greatest men and women in history were black.

 

Color doesn’t matter.

“And among His Signs is the Creation of the Heavens and the Earth, and the Variation of your Languages and your Colors. Verily in that are Signs for those who know.” (Qur-aan 30.22)

Prophet Muhammad (sAaws) said, “Verily Allah does not look to your bodies nor to your faces but He looks to your hearts,” and he pointed towards the heart with his fingers. (Sahih Muslim Book 032, Hadith Number 6220.)

Skin color does NOT matter.

To Allaah (God).

But to most people most of the time it does. We’re obsessed with it. Racism against Blacks of African descent is only one example. Racism against dark skin exists in every culture. It also exists within races, as light-skinned members are automatically considered better-looking and more desirable for marriage. Arabs, South Asians, and African-Americans are all guilty of this. There’s the concept of mejor la raza prevalent in Latin America. (Seen Sammy Sosa lately?) “Fairness” creams, with their commercials of happier, more successful newly-lightened people are the rage in Asia. African diasporans the world over spend billions straightening and lightening their hair (the point sometimes is to make it look naturally straight, as if to say “I’m not Black enough to have to straighten my hair.”)

Black people all over the world, from the Americas to Cambodia have been infected with feelings of inferiority and self-hatred, and relatively lighter-skinned peoples are equally convinced of their superiority and inherent beauty and goodness. These are not only popular sentiments, but academia itself has been compromised. History has been covered up and re-written for various reasons, to justify slavery, genocide and colonization, and after that to maintain the status quo.

But what if everyone knew that some of the most influential people in history were black? That the prophets respected by people of all races the world over, were in fact, African in appearance? No need to re-read; you got it right the first time: Abraham, Joseph, Moses, the Hebrews, Jesus, and even Paul, were all black. Christian, Jewish and Islamic sources, along with voluminous historical research, all corroborate these claims. It is little taught, but well-known: the prophets were black.

Islamic Sources

The Qur-aan does not generally describe appearances in detail, because there is a greater focus on the “moral” of the story than its details. However, in the Hadeeth literature (authenticated sayings and actions of Prophet Muhammad recorded by his companions), there are some descriptions of various prophets.

Moses was of brown complexion, straight hair and tall stature as if he was from the people of Az-Zutt.” (Bukhaari Volume 4, Book 55, Number 648)

The Prophet (Muhammad) said “The prophet Moses was brown, a tall person as if from the people of the tribe of Shanu’a. Jesus was a curly-haired man of moderate height…” (Bukhaari Volume 4, Book 55, Number 608)

Prophet Muhammad: “While sleeping near the Ka’ba last night, I saw in my dream a man of brown color the best one can see amongst brown color and his hair was long that it fell between his shoulders. His hair was lank and water was dribbling from his head and he was placing his hands on the shoulders of two men while circumambulating the Kaba. I asked, ‘Who is this?’ They replied, ‘This is Jesus, son of Mary.’” (Bukhaari Volume 4, Book 55, Number 649)

Judeo-Christian Sources

The Old and New Testament(1), in concert with sound historical research, make it explicit that Abraham, and the Israelites who were his descendants all the way to Mary and Jesus, were black in appearance. Paul, while not a prophet, had an unparalleled influence on Christianity. He was black, too.

The following two articles are too long to paste here. But they contain a detailed analysis of the Old and New Testament scriptures (no reference to which version), along with photographs, paintings, statues and reliefs and references to published research.  Click the title to read.

The Physical Appearance of Ancient Israel, part I:

Ham; Cush, Mizraim, Phut, & Canaan; Joseph, the Hebrews, and the Egyptians; Moses, the Hebrews and the Egyptians; Paul of Tarsus; Mary & Jesus

The Physical Appearance of Ancient Israel, part II:

The Ethiopian Hebrew baptized by Philip; The Hebrews in Antioch: Simeon that was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, etc.; Paul of Tarsus; Abraham, Nimrod, son of Cush, the Chaldeans (ancient Iraq)

Conclusion

The list of great black ancient figures and civilizations is not limited to prophets and saints, nor even to Africa. In fact, many original or at least pre-historical civilizations were what you would call black, according to the way they chose to depict themselves, as well as published historical research.

But the point here is not to establish one race as superior to another. There is no “pure race”. There are no “chosen people”:
“O people! We Created you from a Male and a Female, and Made you into Nations and Tribes, that you may know each other. Verily, the most honorable of you before Allaah are the most pious of you. (Qur-aan 49.13)

Allah’s Apostle was asked, “Who is the most honorable amongst the people?” He replied, “The most Allah fearing.” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 55, Number 597)

So these facts are here because truth is an amaana, a trust that must be discharged. Black History is world history. It is my history, your history, everyone’s history. Go to your children’s schools and start demanding this. Sit down with your children and teach this. Stop hiding your hair texture- Black men and women- and invest in a new, real self-esteem. Tear the idols of black hatred down from your minds. Petition black artists to stop Europeanizing their appearances. Protest films with inaccurate depictions of great civilizations of old. Make films of your own.

Celebrate Black History all year, not just the shortest month of the Gregorian calendar…
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

(1) The body of narrations originating from Judeo-Christian traditions, rather than from revealed books such as the Scrolls of Ibraaheem (Abraham), the Taura (Torah), Zabuur (Psalms) and Injeel (Gospel) are known as the Israa-eeliyaat in Islamic theology. They are mostly non-biblical explanatory stories and traditions (in Hebrew: midrashim) giving extra information or interpretation about events or individuals recorded in the Hebrew scriptures.

Muslims classify such narrations in three categories:
1) Those considered to be true because the Qur-aan or narrations of Muhammad confirm them.
2) Those considered to be false, because the Qur-aan or narrations of Muhammad reject them.
3) Those not known to be either true or false.

So the Islamic position on Judeo-Christian narrations and what is left of the revealed books could be summed up with the following narrations of Prophet Muhammad:

Narrated ‘Abdullah bin ‘Amr: The Prophet said, “Convey (my teachings) to the people even if it were a single sentence, and tell others the stories of People of Israel (which have been taught to you), for it is not sinful to do so. And whoever tells a lie on me intentionally, will surely take his place in the (Hell) Fire.” (Sahih Bukhari. Hadith 3202)

Narrated Abu Huraira: The people of the Scripture (Jews) used to recite the Torah in Hebrew and they used to explain it in Arabic to the Muslims. On that Allah’s Messenger said, “Do not believe the people of the Scripture or disbelieve them, but say: “We believe in Allah and what is revealed to us.” (Qur-aan 2.136) (Sahih Bukhari, Hadith 4125)

Black History Month: Africa’s Golden Age

African societies were neither backward nor primitive, as Western versions of history usually claim. This article quotes African, European and Arabian sources to show a civilization whose architecture, education, industry, justice, morality and trade were the equal or superior to its contemporaries. Europe, for its part, could only surpass it in terms of gunfire.

Dawn of a New Era
The impact of Islam on African society is summed up by Trimingham. Islam for the ordinary adherent is not an intellectual exercise. It is absorbed and maintains its hold because it is a system of life(1). Islam brings a fixed system of belief and action, not variable according to family of locality. Pilgrimage to Makkah has played an important role in giving African Muslims a conception of Islam as a world religion and the consciousness of possessing a common religious inheritance. Travelling the whole way through Muslim lands gave the impression that Islam was the religion of Africa(2).

wikipedia.org: hausa people

In practical Islam moral conduct is following what God allows and refraining from what He forbids. Theoretical and practical morality for the Muslim means the study and practice of the way of life (sunna) of the Prophet, the exemplar who followed the right path; but since all this has been codified it is simply a matter of following the law. The social ethics of Islam are directed to maintain the harmony and solidarity of the community, the consensus (ijma’) of the community being the criterion (3). The duties incumbent upon the community are summarised in the maxim ‘to command right and forbid wrong’; right and wrong are defined by the law (4). Social harmony involves the stressing of positive virtues such as benevolence, humility truthfulness, condemnation of envy, and care of orphans (4).

Although the communal aspect of moral conduct has been stressed, it should be mentioned that personal responsibility is a keynote of the Qur’an (5) and its outreach in institutions; the five pillars, for example are duties incumbent upon the individual. Observance of Islam means avoiding the tabooed such as: intoxicants, eating pig and carrion; contact with dogs; whistling; mutilations, incising and tattooing.(6).

Observing such precepts of Islam brought considerable changes to African society, which have been observed at all times by travellers and writers on Africa.
Shortly after the adoption of Islam, Kanem rose to be a state of considerable importance and extended its sway over the tribes of the Eastern Sudan to the borders of Egypt and Nubia; the first Muslim king of Kanem is said to have reigned either towards the close of the 11th or the first half of the 12th century (8).
Ibn Battuta gives a good description of the people of Mali under Islam:
‘The Black people possess some admirable qualities. they are seldom unjust, and have greater abhorrence of injustice than any other people. their sultan shows no mercy to anyone who is guilty of the least act of it. There is complete security in their country. Neither traveller nor inhabitant in it has anything to fear from robbers or men of violence.

facebook.com: african muslim

They are careful to observe the hours of prayer, and assiduous in attending them in congregations, and in bringing up their children to them. On Fridays, if a man does not go early to the mosque, he cannot find a corner to pray in, on account of the crowd. It is a custom of theirs to send each man his boy [to the mosque] with his prayer-mat; the boy spreads it out for his master in a place befitting him [and remains on it] until he comes to the mosque. Their prayer-mats are made of the leaves of a tree resembling a date-palm, but without fruit (9).
Another of their good qualities is their habit of wearing clean white garments on Fridays. Even if a man has nothing but an old worn shirt, he washes it and cleans it, and wears it to the Friday service. yet another is their zeal for learning the Qur’an by heart (10).’

The positive impact Islam had on African society was observed by later Western writers and travellers. Smith notes how:
‘We hear of whole tribes laying aside their devil worship, or immemorial fetish, and springing at a bound, as it were, from the very lowest to one of the highest forms of religious belief. Christian travellers, with every wish to think otherwise, have remarked that the Black person who accepts Islam acquires at once a sense of the dignity of human nature not commonly found even among those who have been brought to accept Christianity (11).’
Smith adds:
‘Nor as to the effects of Islam when first embraced by a Black tribe, can there, when viewed as a whole, be any reasonable doubt. Polytheism disappears almost instantaneously; sorcery, with it attendant evils, gradually dies away; human sacrifice becomes a thing of the past. The general moral elevations is most marked; the natives begin for the first time in their history to dress, and that neatly. Squalid filth is replaced by some approach to personal cleanliness; hospitality becomes a religious duty; drunkenness, instead of the rule becomes a comparatively rare exception. Though polygamy is allowed by the Koran, it is not common in practice…; chastity is looked upon as one of the highest, and becomes, in fact, on of the commoner virtues. It is idleness henceforth that degrades, and industry that elevates, instead of the reverse. Offences are henceforth measured by a written code instead of the arbitrary caprice of a chieftain-a step, as every one will admit, of vast importance in the progress of a tribe (12).’

The Islamic impact is also on the economic and cultural levels. Muslims proved to be excellent traders and came to dominate the commercial world, helping to foster progress in sciences, philosophy and technology wherever they settled. Merchants from Arabia and the Gulf opened up the eastern coasts of Africa, from the Horn to Madagascar, to international trade (13). The rich trading settlements of Sofala, Kilwa and Mogadishu became Africa’s outlets to the Indian Ocean. Along the coast, from the Horn to Madagascar, the original Muslim civilisation developed around the Muslim trading settlements: the Swahili civilisation (14).
Browne, and Englishman, who undertook extensive travels in Central African in the years 1799 and 1806 (15), remarks that, among the idolaters of Sheibon and other places, the only persons he saw wearing decent clothes, or indeed clothing at all, were Muslims; that it was to the introduction of Islam a century and a half before his time that Darfur owed its settled government and the cultivation of its soil; and that the people of Bergoo were remarkable for their zealous attachment to their religion, and read the Qur’an daily. In this summary we hear of the use of decent clothing, and the arts of reading and agriculture, attributed to Islam (16).

Mungo Park, educated as he was for the Scotch Church, and cruelly persecuted as he was throughout his travels by the ‘Moorish banditi’, Smith notes would not be likely to be a friend of Islam, and many of his remarks show a strong bias against it: his testimony, therefore is all the more valuable. His travels lay almost exclusively among Muslims or semi-Muslim tribes, and he found that the Black people were everywhere summoned to prayer by blasts blown through elephants’ tusks. On reahing the Niger, the main object of his wanderings, he found, to his surprise, that Sego, the capital of Bamharra, was a walled town, containing some 30,000 inhabitants, that the houses were square and very often white-washed, and that there were Muslim mosques in every quarter. ‘The view of this extensive city,’ he writes, ‘the numerous canoes upon the river, the crowded population, and the cultivated state of the surrounding country, formed altogether a prospect of civilisation and magnificence which I little expected to find in the bosom of Africa’ (17).
His impression of the women was most favourable. ‘I do not recollect,’ he says, ‘a single instance of hard-heartedness towards me among the women. In all my wandering and wretchedness I found them uniformly kind and compassionate.’ One of the first lessons in which the Mandingo women instructed their children was the practice of truth. (18)

everyculture.com: mauritania

Mungo Park adds: ‘the beverages of the pagan Negroes are beer and mead, of which they frequently drink to excess. The Muslims amongst them drink nothing but water’ (19).
As to education, Mungo Park found schools and active teachers everywhere (20). In Africa, we are assured, at all hands, that the Muslim population has an almost passionate desire for education. Wherever Muslims are numerous, they establish schools themselves; and there are not a few who travel extraordinary distances to secure the best possible education (21).

newshopper.sulekha.com

The Reverend Edward Blyden, a native Black African and Christian missionary, counters those who attack Islam, and says:
‘If those Christians who are so unmeasured in their denunciations of ‘Mohammedanism’ could travel, as I have travelled, through those countries in the interior of West Africa, and witness, as I have witnessed, the vast contrast between the pagan and ‘Mohammedan’ communities- the habitual listlessness of the one, and the activity and growth, physical and mental, of the other; the capricious and unsettled administration of law, or rather the absence of law, in the one, and the tendency to order and regularity in the other; the increasing prevalence of ardent spririts in the one, and the rigid sobriety and conservative abstemiousness of the other- they would cease to regard the ‘Mussulman’ system as an unmitigated evil in the interior of Africa’ (22).

Western Efforts to Block the Progress of African Civilization
The Western slave trade, which reached its peak in the 18th century, shattered not just Muslim communities, but the whole of African society and economy, and permanently. Garaudy and Howitt explain how this disastrous impact in great detail (23). It is not that African society, as generally held in Western writing, was initially backward, thus clearing the conscience of the slave traders from their responsibility in its backwardness, but rather, as a whole, Black Africa, in the 15th century, before slave trading, Garaudy explains was not inferior to Europe (24). Coming from Goa or Egypt, Islam penetrated as far as Chad, and met in Nigeria and old black civilisation, which was remarkable for its art, possibly tributary to Mediterranean classical influences, which it soon adopted (25). The African states of Ghana, Mali and songhay shared in the great age of Islamic civilisation from the 9th to 16th centuries (26). On his return from his pilgrimage to Makkah in 1324, Mansa Musa brought back with him the Muslim poet and architect Es Saheli, who built the famous mosques and learning academies of Timbuktu and Gao (27). Timbuktu ranked with Alexandria, Fez, Seville, Cordova and Constantinople as a great centre of learning (28). Blyden speaks of the story of the Hejazi jurist who sought employment in Timbuktu, but who, finding too many scholars went on to Fez where he found employment more easily. He quotes with relish many honourable appearances of a black skin in Islamic literature, as an encouragement to African learning (29).

Timbuktu University- founded in the 11th century and perhaps the oldest university in the world (wikipedia.org: islam in africa

Economically, the textiles of Congo and Guinea were as high quality as those of Europe; Nigerian decorated hides and leather were appreciated in Europe, getting to it via North Africa; and metal works, of copper in particular, of Katanga and Zambia, and iron works of Sierra Leone, were much superior to those they were made to import by force later from Europe (30). The Empire of Ghana was a thriving commercial centre, and its large capital, Kumbi Saleh, was an important centre of trade and scholarship, where Islamic theology and history were studied (31). In Zimbabwe, Rhodes mercenaries and traffickers found huge constructions, and mines well exploited. Bronze metal in Benin was better quality than the Portuguese. European superiority was only in terms of gun fire (32).
It was Western Christendom, and above all the slave trade it inflicted on Africa, which destroyed these progresses of the African continent, and made the prosperity of the slave-trading nations (33). In 1540, only 400 Africans were deported, a figure which rose to nearly 300,000 every year in the 18th century (34). Due to losses during capture, transportation, deaths at the plantations, etc., 100 million Africans perished as a result of the slave trade (65).

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This article was an excerpt of al-Djazairi, S.E., A Short History of Islam, The Institute of Islamic History, Manchester: 2006
(1) J.S. Trimingham: the Influence of Islam; op cit; p. 53
(2) Ibid; pp. 62-3
(3) Ibid; p. 67
(4) Ibid; p. 68
(5) Ibid; pp. 68-9
(6) on the day of Judgement each person will be held responsible for his deeds. ‘The fate of every man have We bound upon his neck…, neither shall any laden soul be charged with the burden of another’; sura xvii.13, 15, vi 34 [Qur-aan 17.13, 15; 6.34]
(7) J.S. Trimingham: The Influence of Islam; op cit; p. 57
(8) C. H. Becker: Geschichte des ostlichen Sudan; Der Islam; vol 1; Strassburg; 1910; pp. 162-3
(9) Ibn Battuta: Voyages d’Ibn Battuta, Arabic text accompanied by Fr tr by C. Defremery and B.R. Sanguinetti, preface and notes by Vincent Monteil, I-IV, Paris, 1968, repring of the 1854 ed; vol 4; pp. 421-2
(10) Ibn Battuta: Travels in Asia and Africa; tr and selected by H.A.R. Gibb; George Routledge and Sons Ltd; London, 1929; pp. 329-31
(11) R.B. Smith: Mohammed; op cit; p.38
(12) Ibid; pp. 42-3
(13) D.T. Niane: General History of Africa; op cit; p.2
(14) Ibid; p. 3
(15) See Pinkerton: Voyages; vol xv and xvi
(16) In R.B. Smith; Mohammed; op cit; p. 44
(17) Mungo Park’s Traves; Cap I. Nd fin; in R.B. Smith: Mohammed; op cit; p. 45
(18) In R.B. Smith; Mohammed; op cit; p. 46
(19) Mungo Park; Cap VII; in R.B. Smith: Mohammed; op cit; p. 46
(20) In R.B. Smith: Mohammed; p. 47
(21) Ibid; p. 41
(22) Ibid; pp. 50-1
(23) R. Garaudy: Comment l’Homme; op cit. W Howitt: Colonisation an dChristianity. op cit.
(24) R Garaudy; Comment l’Homme; op cit; p. 271
(25) E Perroy: Le Moyen Age, Presses Universitaires de France, 1956; p. 525
(26) D. M. Traboulay: Columbus and Las Casas; University Press of America, New York, London, 1994. p. 69
(27) Ibid; p. 70
(28) G.O. Cox: African Empires and Civilisations; New York; 1974; p. 161
(39) Blyden in N. Daniel: Islam, Europe and Empire; Edinburgh University Press; 1966; p. 314
(30) R. Garaudy: Comment l’Homme; op. cit; p. 271
(31) D.M. Traboulay: Columbus and Las Casas; op cit; p. 69
(32) R. Garaud: Comment l’Homme; op cit; p. 271
(33) E. Williams: Capitalism and Slavery; North Carolina; 1944. Catherine C. Vidrotitch: Villes Africaines; op cit; at p. 1390. M. Craton: Sinews of Empire: A short history of British slavery; Garden City; NY; Doubleday; 1974
(34) R. Garaudy; Comment l’Homme; op cit; p. 275
(35) Ibid.

Hijab Success Story: 15-year-old Harvard Fresh(wo)man

Piscataway girl, 15, decides to go to Harvard after being accepted to 13 colleges

By Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger

Saheela Ibraheem wasn’t sure any college would want to admit a 15-year-old. So the Piscataway teen hedged her bets and filled out applications to 14 schools from New Jersey to California.

“It’s the age thing. I wanted to make sure I had options,” said Saheela, a senior at the Wardlaw-Hartridge School in Edison.

In the end, 13 colleges accepted her — including six of the eight Ivy League schools.

After weeks of debate, Saheela settled on Harvard. She will be among the youngest members of the school’s freshman class.

“I’ll be one of the youngest. But I won’t be the youngest,” the soon-to-be 16-year-old said.

Saheela is among the millions of high school seniors who had to finalize their college decisions by Monday, the deadline for incoming freshman to send deposits to the school of their choice. Nationwide, this year’s college selection process was among the most competitive in history as most top colleges received a record number of applications.

Saheela joins a growing number of New Jersey students going to college before they are old enough to drive. Last year, Kyle Loh of Mendham graduated from Rutgers at 16. In previous years, a 14-year-old from Cranbury and two of his 15-year-old cousins also graduated from Rutgers.

For Saheela, her unusual path to college began when she was a sixth-grader at the Conackamack Middle School in Piscataway. Eager to learn more about her favorite subject, math, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants asked to move to a higher-level class. The school let her skip sixth grade entirely.

By high school, Saheela said, she was no longer feeling challenged by her public school classes. So, she moved to the Wardlaw-Hartridge School, a 420-student private school, where she skipped her freshman year and enrolled as a 10th-grader. Her three younger brothers, twins now in the ninth grade and a younger brother in second grade, all eventually joined her at the school.

School officials were impressed Saheela, one of their top students, didn’t spend all her time studying.

“She’s learned and she’s very smart. But she keeps pushing herself,” said William Jenkins, the Wardlaw-Hartridge School’s director of development.

Aaron Houston/For The Star-LedgerSaheela Ibraheem, a 15-year-old senior at Wardlaw-Hartridge School in Edison, has been admitted to 13 colleges, and chose to attend Harvard this fall. Photo taken during a Wardlaw-Hartridge softball game in Piscataway.

Saheela also excels outside the classroom. She is a three-sport athlete, playing outfield for the school’s softball team, defender on the soccer team, and swimming relays and 50-meter races for the swim team. She also sings alto in the school choir, plays trombone in the school band and serves as president of the school’s investment club, which teaches students about the stock market by investing in virtual stocks.

Saheela began applying to colleges last fall. Her applications included her grade point average (between a 96 and 97 on a 100-point scale) and her 2,340 SAT score (a perfect 800 on the math section, a 790 in writing and a 750 in reading).

She was delighted when she got her first acceptance in December from California Institute of Technology. “I was so excited. I got into college!,” Saheela said.

More acceptances followed from Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Cornell, Brown, Williams College, Stanford, University of Chicago, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Washington University in St. Louis.

On March 30, she got her sole rejection letter — from Yale. Saheela isn’t sure why the Ivy League school didn’t want her.

“My parents were thinking it was the age thing,” she said.

Saheela was torn between going to MIT and Harvard. A visit to both campuses last month made the choice easy. “She went to Harvard and she fell in love with the place,” said Shakirat Ibraheem, her mother.

Saheela said she wants to major in either neurobiology or neuroscience and plans to become a research scientist who studies how the brain works. As for her own brain, Saheela insists she is nothing special.

She credits her parents with teaching her to love learning and work hard. Her father, Sarafa, an analyst and vice president at a New York financial firm, would often study with her at night and home school her in subjects not taught at school.

“I try my best in everything I do,” Saheela said. “Anyone who’s motivated can work wonders.”

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story mistakenly reported the number of Ivy League colleges. There are eight. Saheela Ibraheem did not apply to Dartmouth College.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/05/piscataway_15-year-old_girl_he.html

americism

If you’re American and you’re facebooking on the 4th of July; you’re a loser. 

...strive 'til we stride!

If you’re African-American and you’re celebrating the 4th of July; you’re ignorant, because your slavery and humanity was ignored on this day, in the country you broke your back to build.

If you’re Native American and you’re celebrating; you’re a fool, because all that happened for you was other people’s fight for the right to steal your land.

If you’re a European American and you’re celebrating; you’ve likely been bamboozled, for only landowning white men were made full citizens by the war that was to follow this day.

If you’re a woman and you’re celebrating; you’ve disgraced yourself, for after all your contributions, you wouldn’t have an equal say until centuries after this day.

If you’re new here and you’re celebrating today; you are welcome, but perhaps you should have fought and died in your country for what we have here.

As for me, my nationality is a matter of circumstance.  i am free, and so i celebrate, on this day and every other, for i am free from slavery to those who are themselves enslaved, to slavery to the Lord of slaves, who Has Forbidden His Self from oppression, whose Mercy has overcome His Wrath…

Black History Month: Bilal ibn Rabah

The Gregorian month February is known (in the United States, at least) as Black History Month.

From the Annals of Black History, we bring you…   Bilal ibn Rabah.

Bilal was an Ethiopian who answered the call to Islam in secret because he was enslaved to a man who opposed the new religion. He never submitted his heart to even the worst torture, until Abu Bakr purchased his freedom, whereupon Umar declared “Abu Bakr, our master, has freed our master.” Bilal would eventually get his revenge against his former oppressor in the battle of Badr.

Bilal was the first Muslim to ever sound the melodious athan, or call to Islamic prayer. When the Muslims conquered Mecca in a bloodless campaign, it was he, who climbed atop the Ka’aba, to which all Muslims pray, with his black feet, and called the world to prayer in Islam’s holiest city.

Edward Blyden, himself a black man, wrote in 1874:
“The eloquent Adzan or Call to Prayer, which to this day summons at the same hours millions of the human race to their devotions, was first uttered by a Negro, Bilal by name, whom Mohammed, in obedience to a dream, appointed the first Muezzin or Crier. And it has been remarked that even Alexander the Great is in Asia an unknown personage by the side of this honoured Negro.” (1)

To this day, you can find Muslims of all races who are proud to name their sons Bilal.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilal_ibn_Rabah_al-Habashi#References