Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
APPENDIX
ISLAM’S ROLE IN AFRICA
IN THE BACKGROUND OF THE ROLE OF CHRISTIANITY
Virulent missionary propaganda has been carried on in respect of Africa in which, in order to hide the crimes of Christendom against Africa’s black populations, the name of Islam has been most falsely dragged in respect of Negro slavery. Hence, a brief discussion in respect of Islam’s role among the black races of Africa has become absolutely necessary. In this connection we will bring forward the testimony of the Afro-American Christian scholar Dr. Blyden. Combining eminence in scholarship with a first-hand knowledge of Africa, he wrote thus, towards the end of the nineteenth century, in his book: Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (London, 1887):[1]
“After the first conquests of the Muslims in North Africa, their religion advanced southward into the continent not by arms, but by schools and books and mosques, by trade and intermarriage. They could not have brought a force sufficient to subjugate the people, for they had to deal with large, powerful and energetic tribes. The Nigritian and Soudanic tribes have never been subdued by a foreign foe, but they have over and over again driven back both Arabs and Europeans.” (p. 256).
“You can understand why it is then that Islam has such a hold upon the African tribes who have embraced it. They gather under the beams of the Crescent not only for religious but for patriotic reasons, till they are not only swayed with one idea but act as one individual. The faith becomes a part of their nationality, and is entwined with their affections. Arguments from outsiders have no weight with them. There are names and phrases which have such effect upon their minds and so thrill them as supersede and transcend all argument … That theory which attributes the success of Islam in Africa to what are frequently denounced as the sensual aspects of the religion is based upon ignorance, not only of the system but of the elementary facts of human nature. No religion could exert so powerful a sway over two hundred millions [2] of people of all races and climes for more than a thousand years which appealed chiefly to the lower passions.” (p. 266).
“It is not too much to say that the popular literature of the Christian world since the discovery of America, or at least for the last 200 years, has been anti-Negro. The Muhammadan Negro has felt nothing of the withering power of caste. There is nothing in his colour or race to debar him from the highest privileges, social or political, to which any other Muslim can attain. The slave who becomes a Mohammadan is free.” (p. 18).
“With every wish, no doubt, to the contrary, the European seldom or never gets over the feeling of distance, if not of repulsion, which he experiences on first seeing the Negro. While he joyfully admits the Negro to be his brother having the same nature in all its essential attributes, still owing to the diversity in type and colour he naturally concludes that the inferiority which to him appears on the surface must extend deeper than the skin, and affect the soul. Therefore very often inspite of himself he stands off from his African convert even when under his training he has made considerable advance in civilization and the arts … And the (European) missionary looking from a comfortable social distance surveys the Europeonised native, sometimes with pity, sometimes with dismay, seldom with thorough sympathy.” (p. 34).
“Mohammadanism and learning to the Negro were coeval. No sooner was he converted than he was taught to read, and the importance of knowledge was impressed upon him. The Christian Negro came in contact with mental and physical proscription and the religion of Christ contemporaneously. If the Mohammadan Negro had at any time to choose between the Quran and the sword, when he chose the former, he was allowed to wield the latter as the equal of any other Muslim; but no amount of allegience to the Gospel relieved the Christian Negro from the the degradation of wearing the chain which he received with it, or rescued him from the political, and in a measure ecclesiastical, proscription which he still undergoes in all the countries of his exile. Everywhere in Christian lands he plays at the present moment the part of the slave, ape, or puppet.” (pp, 15, 16).
“The Mohammadan Negro is a much better Mohommodan than the Christian Negro is a Christian, because the Muslim Negro as a learner is a disciple, not an imitator … With the disciple progress is from within; the imitator grows by accretion from without. The learning acquired by a disciple gives him capacity; that gained by an imitator terminates in itself. The one becomes a capable man; the other a mere sciolist. This explains the difference between the Mohammadan and the Christian Negro.” (p. 44).
“The introduction of Islam into central and west Africa has been the most important, if not the sole preservative, against the desolations of the slave trade.” (p. 78).
“Mungo Park, in his travels seventy years ago, everywhere remarked the contrast between the pagan and the Mohammadan tribes of interior Africa. One very important improvement noticed by him was abstinence from intoxicating drinks … Thus throughout Central Africa there has been established a vast Total Abstinence Society; and such is the influence of this Society that where there are Muslim inhabitants even in Pagan towns it is a very rare thing to see a person intoxicated. They thus present an almost impenetrable barrier to the desolating flood of ardent spirits with which traders from Europe and America inundate the coast … The abstemiousness of Islam is one of its good qualities which we should like Africans to retain, whatever may be the future fortunes of that faith on this continent. The Negro race in their debilitating climate do not possess the hardihood of the North American Indian or of the New Zealander; and under the influence of that apparently inseparable concomitant of European civilization, they would in a much shorter time than it has taken the last-named races, reach the deplorable distinction of being ‘civilized off the face of the earth’.” (pp. 79, 80).
Dr. Blyden’s book created a big stir in the British press. Among those who boldly came forward to espouse the cause of truth and to confirm the learned doctor’s verdicts on the roles of Islam and Christianity in Africa were Bosworth Smith, who wrote a long article in the Nineteenth Century for December 1887, and an eminent Englishman who had travelled widely in Africa, Mr. Joseph Thomson by name, who wrote in high praise of Islam’s role in the London Times (November10, 1887). We may quote here the latter’s verdict on the allegation of Islam’s association with slave trade in Africa. He said:
“It has been argued by some of your correspondents that in Eastern Africa and the Nile basin you see Islam in its true colour in congenial association with the slave trade and all forms of degradation and violence. A more baseless statement could not be conceived. I unhesitatingly affirm—and I speak from a wider experience of Eastern Central Africa than any of your correspondents possess—that if the slave trade thrives, it is because Islam has not been introduced to those regions, and for the strongest of all reasons, that the spread of Mohammadanism would have meant the concomitant suppression of the slave trade.”
to be continued . . . . .
Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times
