- Islam is an Arab Religion: Islam is a global religion that was revealed in the Ancient Middle East which comprised up of Arabia, Persia and Africa. The followers of Islam have been ethnically diverse since the time of the Prophet; for amongst his companions included Bilal Ibn Rabaah (from Abyssinia or now Ethiopia), Salman al-Farisi (present Iran) and Abdullah Ibn Salaam (a Jew), etc. Morevoer the bigger reality is the fact that Islam has been part of the African landscape for 1400 years. It has been there longer than many native faiths. So regardless of origin we must deal with the reality of how integrated it is into Africa. It is almost like saying to Rome that Christianity is foreign. While Rome has thousands of years of Christian history and culture.
- Islam destroys culture: Islam encourages culture and as part of the sources of Islamic law (Shari’a) there exist what is termed Urf (that’s the custom of a particular community of believers wherever they may be geographically located is accepted as part of Islamic practice; Islam has not said abandon that culture in so far as it is not contradictory to the basic tenets). This is why Islam today remains one of the most culturally, colorful religion on the planet. We can look at the Harar and Somalia, and contrasts it with the Islam of southern Ethiopia of the Hamer, versus the dynamic aesthetic of Islam in Senegal and Mali. Islam has always been a photogenic religion because of the expression of cultures in it. The saying goes that ‘Islam is like water passing over a rock; it takes the color of the stone it passes over.’ Islam in its set of regulations does not inform aesthetic but rules and regulations and codes of conduct. Styles may differ but the central concept is what matters. As a sign of respect to the elderly among the Arabs, younger ones could touch the beard of the old which is not being practiced among the vast Hausa-Muslim communities of Africa and maybe seen as a ‘taboo’ and disrespect to the elderly. Again among the Hausa and Nupe communities in West Africa, take for instance the culture of greetings (and this also apply and is common among the Fulanis and Touregs); the younger ones are required to lower their bodies (kneel down) assuming an elderly person is standing but some Arabs in their understanding see and propagate this under Wahhabism as polytheism (Shirk) by calling it as prostration in prayer (salat) which clearly the two are distinct. How will a Hausa Muslim see an Arab who kisses or hugs a lady even though she might be his direct blood relation (that’s a woman who cannot be married due to blood affinity)? There are customs among Muslims like this even though some have sanctions as to their being acceptable as good or bad in Islam and must be seen as such in their context: of good or bad (sin) not blanket condemnation just because the Arabs do not practice them.
- There is nothing in any major world religion that automatically creates war and slavery. Islam does have a more militaristic tone in the Qur'an but so does the Old Testament -- if not more so. Yet for all the accusations of violence and Islam where is this so-called violence in Muslim communities which have some of the lowest crime rates in the world. Anyone who has visited Morocco or any Muslim majority country would struggle to feel a threat from natural civilian violence. And we cannot consider war torn Iraq as that is a war zone created by Western interest. You could walk almost anywhere in Iran without worry, even in Palestine or Lebanon. Islamic countries are extremely peaceful compared to their Western counterparts.
- Islam perpetuates Arab dominance | Power struggles are common to all areas of human activity and Islam is no different. While America was expanding democracy it was also expanding capitalism and Americanism. Russia was busy with its own political expansion. When Arabs carried “the flag of Islam” they naturally imposed Arab cultural values as the norm. Africans have been at the center of struggle for dominance even in matters of religion and interestingly to the Muslims by competing countries of the Middle East—notably Iran and Saudi Arabia and beyond; each trying to woo the “faithful” to her fold and her own understanding and interpretation of this religion of God. This seemingly dangerous competition has created diversity but at the cost of what many African Muslims stand for centuries ago and it has diminished the role played by the continent and has polarize individuals and families as a result of what you may call “trivialities” in textual interpretations which deep down their hearts even the advocates know or ought to know that this thing is not right. It is partially for these reasons that we have chosen to add our voice to the fold of meaningful discussion on what Islam really is as opposed to how it is being projected which unfortunately characterizes the time we live in. The distinctive nature of Islam as a universal religion is being subjected to “myopia” or turned at best to a “brief case” religion where the many doors of religious diverse practice known in Shari’a and propagated by the early scholars of Islam have been closed. The predicament is the entrenchment among the community of believers of an ideology of varying degree: an ideology and system of beliefs of if it is not this type it isn’t Islam and the emergence of “scholars” who benefit directly and indirectly from the crumbs of this disorder. This arguably has added to the phobia of Islam by even its adherents and confusion has cropped in at the detriment of sincere followers and rooms for meaningful discourse have been finally sealed and closed by these “new propagators”, it seems. As African Muslims enter this new era they are confronted by realities everyday and even in the matters of religion they have been subjected to becoming pawns in what you may call “religious game”. The Qur’an is the first source of Islamic Law and Muslims are encouraged to learn how to read and write it. We know as well that there are different types of science of recitations of the Qur’an—seven types of recitations have been reported by the Prophet’s Hadith. But it is now being made look like those who recite in other versions not common in certain geographical areas as if their recitation is wrong despite the Prophet’s final approval of these other versions. The imposition of a kind of dress pattern for Muslim women never happened during the time of the Prophet Muhammad nor has he ordained that all men shall be bearded. Women were not stopped either from seeking education; for, we read in the early history of Islam how spots were “colonized” by women even in the mosques and other matters of religion. “Education is mandatory on every Muslim male and female”, Muhammad Prophet of Islam.
- Islam is a religion of invasion: Islam cannot be judged by the action or inaction of Muslims and Muslims are people engage in war and expansion. There is nothing unique about this. This does not mean that Islam is not a factor in motivating expansion and invasion or has not been used as an excuse to invade and expand and we must deal with this as in historical context to understand it where it is misunderstood and condone it when it is not. Our sense shouldn’t be beclouded as many mainstream religions are expansionist in both ideology and practice most often than not more brutal and inhumane. The destruction of the Ottoman Caliphate and Muslim Spain as well as the invasion of many African Muslims communities by the colonialists who systematically destroyed religion and culture and entrenched theirs despite pacts to the contrary signed by them with the natives is good evidence. Humane expansion was seen during the time of the Prophet (pbuh) where same people who embraced were sent back to the same communities they belonged to in order to teach and establish justice there. The revival campaigns carried out in West Africa by Shaykh Usman ibn Fodio, for example, did the same by not touching communities which did not mix up Islam with paganism. The end result has been the establishment of justice second to none in human history, whether old or contemporary.
- Islam forces people to convert: This is a common urban legend; while in some parts of the world Muslims did used the "convert or die" under the name of Islam but it is not the general agent of how Islam was disseminated in Africa. The trade factor had been of tremendous benefit to the spread among the Fulani and Berbers as well as through inter and intra-marriages. Others accepted Islam for political reasons, which is no different to what Rome did at the rise of Christianity. Political alignment is a feature of the human-political landscape. Some African rulers by aligned themselves to Islam were able to draw on the political strength of other Islamic super-states for security and expansion.
- Islam sponsored many jihads in Africa: Long before Islam, there was intra-African warfare and rivalry.It could be that as a result of the success of Islam as a nation building religion it naturally would have made the conflicts more intense because Islam led to the creation of super structured states such as the Mali Empire and Sokoto Caliphate which flourished and were modeled along the line of the Madinan Model of the era of the Prophet —which revived and established Islam as it should be practiced sifting away practices alien to Islam among the local African Muslims and these Islamic Empires in Africa had institutionalized as well the culture of reading and learning in sciences, economics, law, history, administration, poetry, Arabic grammar (Nahw) and handwriting style (Ajami), medicine, Qur’anic Exegesis (Tafseer), Rules of Religious Practice (Fiqh), etc.
- Islam sees non-Muslim Africans as infidels: The notion of the “weaker other” aka an infidel is global issue all groups exhibit. This is not unique to the interactions between Islam and non-Muslim groups in Africa. In historical sense this was the way it was, Islam was not different and Muslims in this context have created negativities in human relationship to the detriment of all. So when Greeks speak of Persia they speak of Barbarians. When Kemet spoke of Nubia and Hykoes they glorified themselves and demonized “the other.” History should be a good teacher for all of us. When the first generations of Muslims were oppressed to abandoned their homeland it was to Christian Ethiopia the Prophet (pbuh) sent his disciples and the King who served as the host when he heard the message of Islam from the eloquent mouth of one of his (i.e. the King’s) guests was said to have drawn a line on the ground that “the distinction between you (the Muslims) and us (the Christians) is like this line [thinly on the sand]” and “You can remain in this land (under my protection) so long as you wish”, he added and this, despite the diplomatic pressure from the Arab emissaries that went to him requesting that the Muslims be expelled back to Mecca. That is the goodness in religious interplay according to texts revealed as opposed to emotions characterizing relationship during our time.
- Islam has been a religion of the slave master: Islam has done more as a religion to eliminate slavery than most religions. Freeing slave is repeated constantly within Islamic doctrine. The default condition of humanity in Islam is freedom. In the old world slavery was a mechanism of dealing with prisoners of war, criminals, etc. Islam accommodation of slavery was far less than most indigenous Africa faiths because not a single indigenous African faith took issue with enslavement. It is not easy to draw a distinction between a slave and slave master in most Muslim communities of yesteryears; for, “slaves” were allowed to intermingle and married even the daughters of their “slave masters”.
- Islam and invasion: It is interesting how history is written when Kemet invaded Nubia, and how same reality reared its ugly head when Northern Sudan invades Southern Sudan. In a matter of concrete reality this is a selective history. So we must speak truth in respect of empires and those clamoring to establish empires and see all invasions in the global context.
- Islam discards African values: The values of Islam are at their core African. Africans do circumcise; Africans have communal worship and they as well have dowry. Africans equally are polygamous with sense of justice. The Islamic world has jinns (spirits) like the indigenous Africa.
- Islam discounts African traditions: Not everything is good however because it is African. Many things which are today romanticized in our contemporary times are actually destructive to nation building. Islam eliminates lots of inequities and injustices in African societies. This development in religious understanding and scholarship coupled with sense of justice—second to none—established in Africa has been well documented by even the early European explorers who came to Africa as prelude to colonialism that shattered the seemingly relative stability and progress witnessed by the people of African descent. Despite years of the systematic pillage of the identity of the African Muslims this has not made them lost their psyche or identity as they kept to their cherished ideals and understanding of what is sacred to them because Africans could still see the living testimony of the justice of Islam. This is why Islam spread quickly because it is not seen that foreign ideologically and the locals have seen the sense of justice not as rhetorically being preached by the Empires of today.
- Islam helped the Arab Slave Trade. The Arab slave trade existed long before the arrival of Islam. And it is unfortunate that the voice that narrates history has a hypocritical tone to ascribe Islam to the actions of Arabs, while the same treatment is not brought up when describing European Christians Atlantic Slave trade. There is no causal relationship between Islam and Arab Slave Trade. Arabs happen to be Muslim, “Pagan”, Christian and Jewish during the length and breadth of the Arab Slave Trade
- Arabs Hate Black People. If Arabs hate Africans or not, it is an Arab issue not an Islamic issue. The merging of these two separate groups is malicious. Most Muslims on the planet are not Arabs. Arabs are a minority group in Islam. And many groups thrown into the “Arab” group, such as Arabized Sudanese, Mauritian Berbers, Turage etc is absolutely incorrect. It is like saying Native Americans and Indians (from India) are the same People.
