It is a common mindset, especially in this postmodernistic world, mainly held by those who are not religious, but still believe in God. However, there are two fundamental issues with this mindset.

One, it assumes you know God said that. Ask yourself a simple question, “Did He?” If not, why are you saying it? If you believe in God, it’s only common sense to accept that God can say and do whatever He wants. If He says you’ll go to Heaven, you’ll go to Heaven. And if He says you won’t, well, what can you do? Same with His rules. If He says that we need to meet a certain criteria to be able to go to Heaven, again, who are we to argue?

Two, you are defining what’s “good.” You are defining it on your own; not what God has defined it as and that’s dangerous! This isn’t a trivial thing. This is eternal salvation or doom at stake! Thus, we can’t be lazy and not reevaluate the beliefs we have of God. You see, God’s definition of “good” in Islam is comprehensive. It involves the “good” between people, which include good manners, not lying, not stealing, not murdering, etc. That’s the “good” most people only think about. 

However, there’s also the “good” between the person and God. That involves obeying His rules, worshipping Him properly, etc. And this obviously requires searching for His true religion.

The question is, how did we forget this whole other aspect of good? Is it because we are illogical? Lazy perhaps? If God created us, doesn’t it make sense that we actually see His rules and then follow them? Why should He give you Heaven if you didn’t do that?

If you search for God’s true religion and perhaps decide that it’s Islam, then that requires actions such as praying, fasting in Ramadan, giving charity, AND yes, being good to people.

You might be wondering what’s special about a belief not being racist? Well, let’s look at the fundamentals for a moment. If you believe that there is a God, and especially a just one, you’d expect Him to also not be racist. After all, color is just the pigment of one’s skin and a person doesn’t choose his color or race when he’s born. God can’t be that superficial. God can’t say that Whites are better than Blacks or that Arabs are better than Indians. Color and race shouldn’t be a factor to Him. Not only that, there should also be an emphasis explaining the opposite – that racism is evil. And if you are looking at religions to see which not only are against racism, but also emphasize equality, what would you discover? Let’s look at what Islam has to say. In the Qur’an, God says,

“O humanity! Indeed, We created you from a male and a female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may ˹get to˺ know one another. Surely the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous among you. Allah is truly All-Knowing, All-Aware.“

[Qur’an 49:13]

So Allah is clarifying in clear language that what really matters is how righteous someone is; NOT his or her skin tone, race, wealth, or gender. What’s also remarkable about the Ayah is that it teaches you what kind of mindset to have. He’s not telling us to be like, “Okay fine, he’s Black and I’ll have to accept him.” Instead, He is teaching us to be like, “Cool, he’s Black! Let me learn more about him!”

What’s special about Islam is that you won’t see even a hint of racism from the religion. Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) himself went the extra mile to correct people about this, which is saying something being that he was born to a society infested with racism, not only to other colors, but also to those in different tribes.

Towards the end of his life, Prophet Muhammad 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?

[Musnad Aḥmad 22978, Grade: Sahih]

I’ll leave you with some interesting Islamic facts:

1. Prophet Adam (peace be upon him) was possibly black.
2. Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) was dark-skinned. [Musnad Ahmad]
3. The caller to prayer during Prophet Muhammad’s time and one of his closest and most respected followers, Bilal, was a Black Ethiopian.
4. Prophet Muhammad told his people to listen to the ruler, even if he was an Ethiopian slave. [Bukhari]
5. Najasshi was the ruler of Abyssinia during the Prophet’s time. He was the only king from the surrounding empires to accept the preaching of Islam by the Prophet and convert.
6. Umm Ayman, the mother-figure of Prophet Muhammad, was from Africa and took care of him since he was a child til his death.
7. ‘Ataa ibn Abi Rabah was the first Mufti (Islamic jurist) of Makkah. He was also a freed slave, blind, and paralyzed from waist down.