THE MAN IN SEAT 1A A DIFFERENT TAKE ON THE WORLD NABEEL SHARIFF I took the decision to highlight the Black Lives
The simple acceptance of a black Muslim
Matter movement on this months edition for
marrying an Arab, Indian, Bengali, Pakistani
so many reasons. There are the obvious
Muslim is still severely frowned upon. A black
condemnations from the fate of the late
revert with dreadlocks is told not to enter the
George Floyd to the less obvious nuances of
mosque until it's removed. In the 21st
institutionalised racism in society. The latter
century, these examples show there is a
has been well documented and awareness is
stigmatism
being raised to the centuries of devastating
people, when those said communities have
policies endured by people of colour.
undergone the same stereotyping in recent
and
stereotype
over
black
times. My attention though is on self-reflection. For too long, I've seen discrimination in parts of
The Prophet Muhammad (SAW) took the
our
gender
first steps from turning the lawless slave
discrimination, where a female Muslim holds
trade era to a system where it could be
less importance than their male counterpart
abolished. We also know he was kind to his
in conducting their prayer in a masjid, to the
black brothers and sisters as in the story of
issue at hand, the indifferent treatment of
Bilal (RA). However, we seem to have lost
black people. The sub-continent diaspora
sight of his example and simply quoting
sometimes refer to black people with the 'k'
these events is not enough to say todays
word and Arabs sometimes by the 'a' word.
Muslims are not anti-black. We all have a
The latter literally translates as 'slave'. If we
responsibility to be make changes internally
think for one moment this is a white problem,
and externally. So let's be on the right side of
we need to think again.
history.
faiths
community.
From
