The other day while I was working, I couldn't help but overhear a gentlemen spew forth all sorts of hate-filled, racially-charged rhetoric cloaked in the guise of Islam. From what he was saying, it was evident that he was not so much a Muslim - although he did mention the Qur'an, Muhammad, and other Islamic buzzwords - as he was a follower of Louis Farakahn.
As he was attempting to indoctrinate another man, he was trying to use the Bible like a wax nose that he could mold to fit the face he was trying to sculpt, in this case, a racist one. Along the way, one of the points he labored to make was that Jesus was a black man, and that mean old whitie had hidden this fact, molding instead a Jesus to European liking in an attempt to get the superior black man to bow down and worship inferior white-devils.
In contradistinction to what this man was saying, the historical record tells us that Jesus was a first century, Middle Eastern Jewish man from the tribe of Judah, and, thus, that he was neither African nor European, a fact that stands written today the same as it has in all past ages (though it does have to be granted that pictorial representations of Christ produced by Christians have not always done justice to this fact). But the most interesting thing that occurred to me is that the kind of thinking typified by this man actually undermines Islam (for all those who share this man's racist-driven assumptions), whether it be the old fashioned orthodox kind found in mainstream Islam or the peculiar version advocated by Wallace Fard, Elijah Muhammad, and Louis Farakahn. After all, according to sacred, authoritative Islamic tradition, the Muslim prophet Muhammad said the following about Jesus:
"Narrated Abdullah bin Umar: Allah's Apostle said, "I saw myself (in a dream) near the Kaaba last night, and I saw a man with whitish red complexion, the best you may see among men of that complexion having long hair reaching his earlobes which was the best hair of its sort, and he had combed his hair and water was dropping from it, and he was performing the Tawaf aroud the Kaaba while he was leaning on two men or on the shoulders of two men. I asked, 'Who is this man?' Somebody replied, '(He is) Messiah, son of Mary'" (Bukhari, Vol. 9, Book 87, #128).
As he was attempting to indoctrinate another man, he was trying to use the Bible like a wax nose that he could mold to fit the face he was trying to sculpt, in this case, a racist one. Along the way, one of the points he labored to make was that Jesus was a black man, and that mean old whitie had hidden this fact, molding instead a Jesus to European liking in an attempt to get the superior black man to bow down and worship inferior white-devils.
In contradistinction to what this man was saying, the historical record tells us that Jesus was a first century, Middle Eastern Jewish man from the tribe of Judah, and, thus, that he was neither African nor European, a fact that stands written today the same as it has in all past ages (though it does have to be granted that pictorial representations of Christ produced by Christians have not always done justice to this fact). But the most interesting thing that occurred to me is that the kind of thinking typified by this man actually undermines Islam (for all those who share this man's racist-driven assumptions), whether it be the old fashioned orthodox kind found in mainstream Islam or the peculiar version advocated by Wallace Fard, Elijah Muhammad, and Louis Farakahn. After all, according to sacred, authoritative Islamic tradition, the Muslim prophet Muhammad said the following about Jesus:
"Narrated Abdullah bin Umar: Allah's Apostle said, "I saw myself (in a dream) near the Kaaba last night, and I saw a man with whitish red complexion, the best you may see among men of that complexion having long hair reaching his earlobes which was the best hair of its sort, and he had combed his hair and water was dropping from it, and he was performing the Tawaf aroud the Kaaba while he was leaning on two men or on the shoulders of two men. I asked, 'Who is this man?' Somebody replied, '(He is) Messiah, son of Mary'" (Bukhari, Vol. 9, Book 87, #128).
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