Actually, awais, as variable has rightly pointed out, the us vs. them component simply never went away, it was merely Muslims vs. non believers now.
It unified people. Non-Muslims aren't meant to be treated harsh when they're not fighting Muslims, so as to beautify Islam in there eyes and invite them to submit to Allah, dawa.
Regarding Salman al-Farsi and Abdullah bin Salam, the tolerance and equality shown to them was only due to them having become Muslims, had Salman al Farsi sought equality as a Zoroastrian, he'd at best be asked to pay the jiziya tax and feel oppressed and marginalized. The same would be the fate of Abdullah bin Salam had he remained a Jew and sought equal rights with Muslims. And of course, there's actually little tolerance shown to any polytheistic idolater, its either conversion or death. The difference between Muslims and non Muslim People of the Book are stark, and sanctioned by Mohammed, and the difference between Muslims and idolaters are immense, idolaters simply can't continue their mode of worship, they have to convert or be killed according to the Quran.
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As for Mohammed's wife Safiyyah, maybe she'd face no inequal treatment, had Mohammed's wives remained pagan and not converted to Islam.
What of the Golden Age of Judaism, which was in Muslim Spain? Jews were safer to live in, and more prosperous in Muslim lands than Christian ones. Not until the rise of Zionism was there widespread anti-semitism in Dar al-Islam as there was in The West.
Muhammad himself got along with Jews and Christians when they weren't fighting him. He died with his armour pawned to a Jew. He said if your neighbors are hungry, even non-Muslim, and you (as a muslim) are full, then you are not a true Muslim; he fed his hungry Jewish neighbors, visited their sick (even if it was just to invite them to Islam
)... There were no problems unless they betrayed him by siding with his enemies in war.
What of the Mughal Emperor
Akbar, who repealed the Jizya, tolerated Hindus and let them flourish; even his favourite wife was Hindu, a forbidden marriage according to the Qur'an.
Nice letter by Malcolm, however, even recently Zawahiri called Obama a house negro in his native tongue, and Saudi Arabia's predominantly black slaves were liberated only in 1962, nearly a hundred years after America's all black slaves. However, Mohammed did try to establish a spirit of equality, and that seems to have had a positive effect on Muslims.
Actually Zawahiri was referring to Malcolm X, because that phrase comes from him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znQe9nUKzvQTo understand this, you have to go back to what [the] young brother here referred to as the house Negro and the field Negro -- back during slavery. There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes - they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good 'cause they ate his food -- what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the master; and they loved their master more than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save the master's house quicker than the master would. The house Negro, if the master said, "We got a good house here," the house Negro would say, "Yeah, we got a good house here." Whenever the master said "we," he said "we." That's how you can tell a house Negro.
If the master's house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, "What's the matter, boss, we sick?" We sick!? He identified himself with his master more than his master identified with himself. And if you came to the house Negro and said, "Let's run away, let's escape, let's separate," the house Negro would look at you and say, "Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?" That was that house Negro. In those days he was called a "house nigger." And that's what we call him today, because we've still got some house niggers running around here.
This modern house Negro loves his master. He wants to live near him. He'll pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near his master, and then brag about "I'm the only Negro out here." "I'm the only one on my job." "I'm the only one in this school." You're nothing but a house Negro. And if someone comes to you right now and says, "Let's separate," you say the same thing that the house Negro said on the plantation. "What you mean, separate? From America? This good white man? Where you going to get a better job than you get here?" I mean, this is what you say. "I ain't left nothing in Africa," that's what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa.
On that same plantation, there was the field Negro. The field Negro -- those were the masses. There were always more Negroes in the field than there was Negroes in the house. The Negro in the field caught hell. He ate leftovers. In the house they ate high up on the hog. The Negro in the field didn't get nothing but what was left of the insides of the hog. They call 'em "chitt'lin'" nowadays. In those days they called them what they were: guts. That's what you were -- a gut-eater. And some of you all still gut-eaters.
The field Negro was beaten from morning to night. He lived in a shack, in a hut; He wore old, castoff clothes. He hated his master. I say he hated his master. He was intelligent. That house Negro loved his master. But that field Negro -- remember, they were in the majority, and they hated the master. When the house caught on fire, he didn't try and put it out; that field Negro prayed for a wind, for a breeze. When the master got sick, the field Negro prayed that he'd die. If someone come [sic] to the field Negro and said, "Let's separate, let's run," he didn't say "Where we going?" He'd say, "Any place is better than here." You've got field Negroes in America today. I'm a field Negro. The masses are the field Negroes. When they see this man's house on fire, you don't hear these little Negroes talking about "our government is in trouble." They say, "The government is in trouble." Imagine a Negro: "Our government"! I even heard one say "our astronauts." They won't even let him near the plant -- and "our astronauts"! "Our Navy" -- that's a Negro that's out of his mind. That's a Negro that's out of his mind.
Topic: Why do muslims take the Qur'an so literally??