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.

Let’s delve a little deep in the part of the Qur’an where God announced to the angels that He will place man on Earth:

“And [mention, O Muhammad], when your Lord said to the angels, “Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successor.” They said, “Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we exalt You with praise and declare Your perfection?” He [Allah] said, “Indeed, I know that which you do not know.”

[Qur’an 2:30]

When the angels asked God the question, did God give a fancy answer? Did He say, “Well, for this person, he suffered that calamity because of this reason and if it didn’t happen, this would’ve happened. And if something else happened, it would’ve been worse for him”? Nope.

All He said was, “Indeed, I know that which you do not know.” It’s hard to accept such an answer, but there’s a profound lesson in that. We may understand why some things happened to a certain person. Maybe your friend didn’t get that job because he was lazy in school. Maybe your uncle got into a car accident because he was a reckless driver. Maybe for a more complicated situation, after contemplating it for some time, we can see some reasoning behind it. However, at the end of the day, we don’t have the answers for everything. We don’t know why a five-year old girl would get leukemia. We don’t know why millions of innocent people have died in wars throughout human history they weren’t a part of. We also don’t know why certain “random” things have happened in our lives. But all this does not mean God doesn’t exist.

I heard a speaker once explain: if you go to a physics library and don’t understand some of the books, are you going to say, “Forget this! Physics doesn’t exist”?

At the end of the day, perhaps there are reasons, but so complex with many intricate parts to them, that our minds just cannot comprehend them all. Regardless, if we have the foundation and know that God has to exist and that He’s the All-Knowing, we sometimes just have to humbly accept that we don’t have all the answers.