Rashna,
I have a Sufi friend who gave me quite rosy picture of Islam. Like Universal broother-hood, the whole human kind under one God, rights for women. So I also decided to search for the negative opinion. I found FFI. I did not do a lot ofposting there, as I felt it was not my type of board.
And finally I realised that Islam was unacceptable to me and even many parts of Hinduism. I still have good relationship with my friend though. I generally don't bring up Islam in our discussion.
Your friend was either genuinely ignorant of these bits of Islam, or maybe just giving dawa dishonestly.
Arabs are the most noble people in lineage, the most prominent, and the best in deeds. We were the first to respond to the call of the Prophet. We are Allah?s helpers and the viziers of His Messenger. We fight people until they believe in Allah. He who believes in Allah and His Messenger has protected his life and possessions from us. As for one who disbelieves, we will fight him forever in Allah?s Cause. Killing him is a small matter to us.
Tabari IX 69
I heard the
Apostle say: ?Whoever wants to see Satan should look at Nabtal!' He was a black man with long flowing hair, inflamed eyes, and dark ruddy cheeks?. Allah sent down concerning him: ?To those who annoy the Prophet there is a painful doom." [9:61] "Gabriel came to Muhammad and said,
?If a black man comes to you his heart is more gross than a donkey's.'Ishaq 243
Shem, the son of Noah was the father of the Arabs, the Persians, and the Greeks;
Ham was the father of the Black Africans; and Japheth was the father of the Turks and of Gog and Magog who were cousins of the Turks. Noah prayed that the prophets and apostles would be descended from Shem and kings would be from Japheth.
He prayed that the African?s color would change so that their descendants would be slaves to the Arabs and Turks.Tabari II 11
Ham [Africans] begat all those who are black and curly-haired, while Japheth [Turks] begat all those who are full-faced with small eyes, and Shem [Arabs] begat everyone who is handsome of face with beautiful hair.
Noah prayed that the hair of Ham?s descendants would not grow beyond their ears, and that whenever his descendants met Shem?s, the latter would enslave them.Tabari II 21
It is your folly to fight the Apostle, for Allah?s army is bound to disgrace you. We brought them to the pit. Hell was their meeting place.
We collected them there, black slaves, men of no descent.Ishaq 450
The
black troops and slaves of the Meccans cried out and the Muslims replied, ?Allah destroy your sight,
you impious rascals.?
Ishaq 374
Its ironical that while the Brit colonizers were criticising Hindus for casteism, the Western world either had a Bible based slavery & racial apartheid. The belief as in the Muslim sources I quoted was that-Blacks are
Ham's descendants, meant for slavery.
In fact, American schools got de segregated a decade & a half after India legally abolished casteism.South Africa's Constitution declared it a Christian nation during the Apartheid Era, today its desegregated & secular. During the American Civil Wars too, the Southern Baptist Church supported Black slavery on Biblical Basis.
Topic: Hinduism and Me (Repeat Post)