Thread by @DiabolicalIdea

There is no racism in Islam.

I have read and heard variations on this assertion repeatedly since the murder of George Floyd. But this is simply untrue. Islam's track record on discrimination is not better than Christianity's, just (somewhat) different.

#racism #BlackLivesMatter

In Islam, there is a (theoretical) equality between believers. But this equality does not encompass non-Muslims. While there have been periods of remarkable tolerance towards minorities in Islamic history, Islam discriminates against non-Muslims, both in theory and in practice.

The harshest form of discrimination in the foundational ideals of Islam, like in much of the world, was between free citizens and slaves. While Islam sought to restrict the enslavement of people within Islamic societies, slavers could enslave non-Muslims from non-Muslim lands.

This externalising of slavery led to the development of a global slave trade, with devastating consequences to the areas from which slaves were imported. Although slavery in Islam was multiracial and multiclass, East and Central Africa were hardest hit by Muslim slave traders.

While the descendants of slaves in America rightly focus on the Christian transatlantic slave trade from West and Central Africa, the equally devastating legacy of the Islamic slave trade in East and Central Africa is often missing from contemporary debates.
#BlackLivesMatter

Although Islam says all believers are created equal, some have almost always been more equal than others. From the dawn of Islam, Arabians, especially the Querish tribe, were considered superior to other Muslims.

While Muslims are familiar with European cultural imperialism and hegemony, Muslims are less willing to recognise that this happened to them before. The Arab conquests not only made Arabic a global language, it also instilled a deep shame of pre-Islamic history among the Arabised

While the legacy of slavery in America features prominently in the conscience of Muslims, the social, economic, political and cultural legacies of the Islamic slave trade and slavery are given very little attention.

#slavery #BlackLivesMatter
chronikler.com/reflections/mu…

Racial stereotypes about black people did not start with scientific racism. Innovative historian Ibn Khaldun believed "negroes are characterised by instability, petulance and a lively gaiety". However, he attributed this to climate, not biology.
jstor.org/stable/271543?…