The Quran actually addresses the issue of racism since the account of creation. There it condemns Iblis who had no better reason to reject bowing to Adam, other than he was of lesser, earthly origins while he, Iblis, was made of fire.
The fact that man could be favored spiritually despite his humble origins could not be reconciled with Iblis' pride and arrogance just as the disbelievers of all times could not reconcile their prejudiced worldly views with God's criteria for prophethood that are not bound by any ethnical, social or economic considerations. The angels on the other hand bowed down before man, despite the fact that they were purely celestial beings, demonstrating that honor lies in obedience and humility to God.
The prophet David summed up this higher reality in the Bible
Ps8:6"You have made him (man) slightly less than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and majesty".Man is of a lesser make than the angels but can achieve a much higher rank through spiritual merit. This also leads us to the Islamic concept that the worth of the human is not measured by his race, gender, ethnicity, tribal origins, or social achievements but through righteousness and spiritual awareness 4:1,25:77,34:37,25:27-8,42:23,49:13.
The promotion of racism, nationalism, tribalism and sectarianism at the expense of morality and human brotherhood is in actuality, following the lead of Satan and, by implication, rejecting the dignity of one's own self. The prophet said
"O people, your Lord is one and your father Adam is one. There is no favor of an Arab over a foreigner, nor a foreigner over an Arab, and neither white skin over black skin, nor black skin over white skin, except by righteousness. Have I not delivered the message?"Or
"Verily, you have no virtue over one with white skin or black skin, except by favor of righteousness".Once the prophet was approached by a Bedouin who in a typical fashion and mentality of his time, asked him which tribe is best. The prophet, in accordance with the aforementioned Quran teachings repeated the principle that
"The most noble is the one who has the most piety.”The man said he didnt mean it in that sense. So the Prophet gave him a satisfactory answer all the while keeping in view the Quran principle of the true value of a human being
"the most noble person is Yusuf ibn Ya‘qub ibn Ishaaq ibn Ibrahim".
He gave him the example of a non-Arab whose righteousness exceeded that of most Arabs. That is besides all extra Quranic material speaking of some black people among the prophet's closest entourage, such as the ex-slave Bilal or the prophet's second wife Sawda. Bilal was the first caller to prayer, praised as one who is already in heaven despite still alive. He was selected among those who entered the Kaaba together with the prophet upon the conquest of Mecca for the first time. Elsewhere in the ahadith the prophet is depicted as supporting a black woman's testimony in a dispute with an Arab man, praying at the grave of a black man, forbidding a man from disowning his dark complexioned son, reprimanding a companion for mocking the skin color of a black man. The prophet did so by pointing him to the principle that no human is of any value except in his God-consciousness 49:13.
This verse in addition states the racial and tribal varieties among humans should not be factors of separation, people instead should actively seek to know one another precisely because of these differences
"We have created you of a male and a female, and made you tribes and families that you may know each other; surely the most honorable of you with Allah is the one among you most careful (of his duty); surely Allah is Knowing, Aware"
Diversity in creation is seen as a manifestation of God's mercy and creativity, a positive aspect of nature, including in the variety of skin color
30:20-22"One of His signs is that He created you from dust and- lo and behold!- you became human and scattered far and wide. Another of His signs is that He created spouses from among yourselves for you to live with in tranquillity: He ordained love and kindness between you. There truly are signs in this for those who reflect. Another of His signs is the creation of the heavens and earth, and the diversity of your languages and colours. There truly are signs in this for those who know"
35:27-28"Have you [Prophet] not considered how God sends water down from the sky and that We produce with it fruits of varied colours; that there are in the mountains layers of white and red of various hues, and jet black; that there are various colours among human beings, wild animals, and livestock too? It is those of His servants who have knowledge who stand in true awe of God. God is almighty, most forgiving".
The prophet commented that
"Allah created Adam from a handful which he took from the whole of the earth ; so the children of Adam are in accordance with the earth : some red, some white, some black, some a mixture, also smooth and rough, bad and good".There is good and bad in all of humanity, not in one race particularly.
There is therefore no hint to racial prejudice anywhere in the Quran and the prophetic sayings.
We find negative allusions to darkness in the hereafter, but not in the racial sense. The unrepentant sinners on the day of judgement will be wandering in the same darkness that they were walking in this life. Consequently they are depicted as asking a share of the light beaming on the righteous
57:13-15"Wait for us so that we may acquire light from your light. It will be said (to them): Go back behind you and seek a light. And a wall would be struck between them with a door, its interior containing mercy, but on its outside, there will be torture".Their whole beings will be thus plunged into darkness, as if literally
10:27"covered with slices of the dense darkness of night".Some ahadith refer to them coming out of Adam's left shoulder
"black offsrpings as if they were charcoal"describing their state following their judgement and decree to enter the Fire
"To hell, and I do not care".The hadith, unsurprisingly graded weak by Shuayb al-Arnaaut, cannot be alluding to the origin of the human race. It speaks of multitudes coming out of Adam's shoulder and entering hellfire.
The absence of light upon the wicked on the day of judgement is alluded to in the Hebrew Bible, including in Job38:14-15. A thick and burning smoke will then drive them inside of hell 44:10-11,77:30-4.
Their faces, blackened by the scorching hellfire 3:106,39:60 will in addition be covered with ignominy, symbolized by dirt and dust from the ground 10:26,80:40.
The idea of darkening the faces in the hereafter will both be in the physical and metaphorical sense. Of course, this idea has no racial connotation, as it speaks of the darkening of the faces only, not the entire body. Just as the radiant faces of the righteous, beaming from the divine light shining on them 3:106,75:22,80:38,83:24 has nothing to do with racial whiteness. A black face is in Arabic an idiom for shame, grief, distress as in 43:17, when a man’s face blackens upon hearing news of an infant girl. While a white face denotes emotional, spiritual joy and relief.
There is pre-Islamic poetry in which "black faces" implies dishonoring.
In a known incident involving Jewish adulterers in Medina, while seeking the prophet's judgement, they said that they had substituted the biblical punishment of stoning with blackening of the face to symbolize dishonoring. The prophet is reported to have invoked Allah's curse upon the disbelievers at the battle of Badr by blowing dust from the ground upon their faces, at a distance.
Even in our modern Arabic, we speak of blackening/whitening one's face to imply honoring or dishonoring. It is similar to the idea in Western culture of "losing one's face".
Some hadith describe situations where the prophet is confronting his racially prejudiced society, telling them that whoever a leader might be, even an
"Ethiopian whose head is like a raisin",
then they are to put their prejudice aside and obey him. Raisin is in reference to the black color. The prophet is using their own prejudice against them, pushing it to the extreme to explain there are no boundaries of race in legitimate leadership. He was always quick to correct his people's racial and societal prejudices
"A black person, a male or a female used to clean the Mosque and then died. The Prophet did not know about it . One day the Prophet remembered him and said, "What happened to that person?" The people replied, "O Allah's Messenger! He died." He said, "Why did you not inform me?" They said, "His story was so and so (i.e. regarded him as insignificant)." He said, "Show me his grave." He then went to his grave and offered the funeral prayer".
He respectfully stood at the funeral procession of a Jew, in a time of great enmity between Medinite Jews and Muslims, demonstrating the principle that we are all equal in humanity
"A funeral procession passed in front of the Prophet and he stood up. When he was told that it was the coffin of a Jew, he said, "Is it not a living being (soul)?"
Mahran, his black slave was a vehicle of impressive miracle of strength. As they were returning together from a tiresome trip, most probably a battle, in which he did not participate since slaves were exempted, the prophet who on the other hand did participate, progressively loaded Mahran with more and more heavy belongings of the travellers until, in his own words
"i carried the load of six or seven donkeys without even feeling it".The last part of the quote is often omitted by polemicists. Following the incident, Mahran was nicknamed "the ship". The prophet knew what he was doing and how a miracle would ensue. He was not deliberately loading Mahran with more than what he would be able to bear
"Your slaves are your brethren, upon whom God has given you authority. So, if one has one’s brethren under one’s control, one should feed them with the like of what one eats and clothe them with the like of what one wears. You should not ask them to do things beyond their capacity, and if you do so, help them [with their hard job]".The prophet would even tolerate black ethnic groups among the population of slaves, to play their instruments and display their cultural dances at occasions (that particular report is often distorted by polemicists arguing they were instead displayed for sale).
Other similar shameless distortions by those who believe in vain things and whose religion tolerates any means possible so long as "Christ is preached", are a quote from Tabari saying blacks were created to be the Arabs' servants. The quote is not attributed to the prophet.
Then there is a Bukhari hadith where an indebted man pledges to free/manumit his only valuable possession which he could have used to settle his debt instead. The prophet used to personally settle the debts of those who had no assets. But it wasnt this indebted man's case, which is why the prophet cancelled that pledge and settled the debt by transfer of ownership of the slave. It would have been unfair for the prophet to use his limited assets to settle this particular debt when other indebted people were more entitled to his gracious and compassionate help.
Finally, only those whose history and religion is burdened with a dark notion of "slavery" think that a slave in Islam lives in misery as was the case with them.
When some ahadith depict the prophet as white, it isn't Caucasian white but in the middle eastern understanding, even nowadays when an Arab is said to be "blond" it means light skinned from the Arabic skin tone. When the Arabs called the Romans Bani Asfar/yellow, it wasnt in reference to blond hair but the skin tone which they believed was due to their forefather Rum ibn Al-Ais Ibn Ishaq. Others thought their land was conquered partly by the Abyssinians of Africa with whom they intermarried, resulting in offspring with a yellowish skintone.
Many ahadith describe the prophet's skin color. Elsewhere it is said
‘he had a rosy color, neither absolutely white nor deep brown’.The statement from Qadi Iyad
"whoever says that the Prophet was black is killed. The Prophet was not black"occurs 400 years after the Prophet and uttered in a specific context, which is as usual ignored by the polemicists who think they can freely interject in a discussion occurring centuries earlier. Ahmad ibn Sulayman was a member of the family that ruled a part of what is now Spain. He was in Europe and surrounding countries were those of Europeans.
The enemies of Islam, in those days werent different than the shameless ones of today, they have always insulted the Messenger of God and this was another one in their racist view. Secondly, to call the Prophet black would be to deny his lineage; it is to say that his mother wasn’t really his mother. Coming from the venomous Western tongue which for most of its bible loving history viewed blacks as subhumans, such a statement was an insult. Saying to anyone, especially in a derogatory tone, that he is from another race than what he and his culture proudly trace themselves to, is an insult. Try saying to a Greek that he is of Turkish descent or to an Irish that he's English.
Further, within the same statement there is a long list of acts in relation to the prophet which the rulers of the time decided to punish, such as if someone says that the prophet died before his beard began to grow, then he is to be killed. There is nothing wrong with the statement in and of itself but when one makes these statements with the aim to defame and insult, then its not something any Muslim would tolerate.
The Prophet did not own only black slaves. Slavery, the Islamic understanding of the term not the Judeo-christian western one, was common in those days and slaves came in all colours and races.
If he compared Satan to a specific contemporaneous black man (Nabtal), who not only had ugly monstrous looks but also evil and sinful behavior, it isnt necessarily for the color of his skin. Only a polemicists whose self and society diabolizes black people for the color of their skin may think so. The prophet, let alone the Quran as depicted in introduction, was far from such lowly morality and prejudice. In another similar narration he compares Satan to an Arab. Further there are statements of the Prophet where he compared the end times arch-evil figure (dajjal) to Abdul Uzza b. Qatan who was an Arab and not black.
Finally and contrary to certain other polemics, the prophet did not "trade" in slavery.
Under the hudaybiya treaty, any Muslim from Mecca fleeing to Medina where the Muslim community was established, had to be returned to the Meccans. It was in such circumstances that a person whom the prophet did not know was someone's slave, sought refuge with him. When the Meccan master came looking for him, he would not return until the prophet gave him 2 of his own, and of his, the Meccan's, choice. The 2 chosen by the Meccan were black. He chose the best in his sight and although the bargain was not ideal for the prophet, he showed that he valued his own much more than his opponents valued theirs.
A report from Zad al Maad by ibn Qayyim, speaking of the prophet buying and selling slaves, gives a single example of such "transaction" which is none other than the one already spoken of by Bukhari above. As to the prophet buying slaves this is of course attested many times in the authentic reports, he bought them from other Muslims following their capture as war prisoners, to immediately emancipate them and set the example. The report from Zad al Maad gives other details which are dismissed by the hadith scholars, including Bukhari as inauthentic. This is mentioned in the footnotes of ibn Qayyim's complete version of Zad al maad p163-165.
