The Ummah

Arabs are the most noble people in lineage, the most prominent, and the best

in deeds.

—Al-Tabari 9:69

They wish that you reject Faith, as they have rejected (Faith), and thus that you all become equal (like one another). So take not Auliya’ (protectors or friends) from them, till they emigrate in the Way of Allah (to Muhammad). But if they turn back (from Islam), take (hold) of them and kill them wherever you find them.

—Qur’an 4:89

O you who believe! Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger (Muhammad) and

render not vain your deeds.

—Qur’an 47:33

There is a notion in Islam that the Muslims of the world together constitute one nation called the ummah. The idea of the ummah is suggested in the Qur’an,1 and in a famous declaration made by Muhammad on December 11, 629 AD. On that day, he and an army of 10,000 followers became masters of Mecca after a successful siege.2 Upon taking control of the town, Muhammad declared the foundation of a new religious state to an audience of believers and vanquished Meccans:

A Muslim is the brother of another Muslim and all the Muslims are brothers of one another and constitute one hand as against all non-Muslims. The blood of every one of them is equal to that of others and even the smallest among them can make a promise on behalf of others.3

With these words, Muhammad declared that the foundation of his new nation would be ideological. All those who accepted his revelation were equal to one another.

Today, Muhammad’s ummah is a trans-national empire of about 1.6 billion people. Its constitution, its laws, and its policies are written in Arabic, a language spoken as a first language by a mere 15 percent of its subjects and not understood by a majority.4 After 14 centuries of imperialistic expansion the ummah now spans 49 nation-states in which Muslims are the majority, although its members exist in significant numbers as minorities across India, Europe, and North America.5 Wherever members of this trans- national empire exist, they are expected to congregate at a regional or local headquarters for instructions and displays of loyalty. The headquarters are called mosques, and the men who provide the instructions are called imams. The details of the loyalty displays were established by Muhammad and involve ritual prostrations and the chanting of oaths of obedience.

But there are problems with the ummah. Despite Muhammad’s declaration of equality, there is a very real hierarchy among Muslims. Members of Muhammad’s bloodline are at the top, with the rest of the Arabs below, and all non-Arabs further down. The idea of the ummah also posits that the Islamic world is Dar al-Salaam, a House of Peace. Yet as we shall see, this House of Peace is full of exploitation and discrimination. In short, the idea of an Islamic ummah is full of falsehoods and contradictions.

THE SAYYIDS

Sayyid is an Arabic term used to denote Muslims who are of Muhammad’s bloodline. The term literally means “lord” or “my liege” in Arabic. Although there are different kinds of sayyid, the most important in Islam are those who descend from Muhammad’s daughter Fatima. These descendants are looked upon with special reverence by Muslims and have acquired various privileges amounting to de facto nobility despite Muhammad’s declaration of equality among Muslims.6

For centuries, sayyids have often denoted their special status through clothing. In Persia and the Ottoman Empire, for example, they wore green turbans to set them apart from other Muslims. In Iran today, sayyid imams wear black turbans (ordinary imams wear white) to mark their descent from Muhammad. In many Islamic countries sayyid have received funding so that they do not have to work for a living. This practice was already long-established when 19th century European travelers to Persia noticed that it had turned the sayyid into a lazy and dissolute bunch.7 Over the years, other privileges given to sayyid have included immunity from ordinary state regulations with the understanding that only a fellow sayyid can judge them. There is still pressure on sayyids to only marry their fellows so as to keep the bloodline pure—a practice hardly distinguishable from noble or royal families. Even today, there is an assumption among many Muslims that sayyids are particularly holy because of their descent from the prophet.

Sayyids are numerous in Iran, where the beliefs of Shia Islam make them of even more religious and political importance. But there is also an extremely large population of purported sayyids in South Asia, where asserting Arab ancestry became a point of pride for many Muslims eager to disavow their Hindu or Indian lineage. Ironically, a genetic study of self-identified sayyids in India showed:

Self-identified Syeds had no less genetic diversity than those non-Syeds from the same regions, suggesting that there is no biological basis to the belief that self- identified Syeds in this part of the world share a recent common ancestry.8

This should come as no surprise: during the Qajar Dynasty in Iran, it was quite common for men to claim sayyid ancestry falsely in order to gain social prestige and advantages.9 Yet no one would make such false claims if there were not significant advantages to be found—advantages that run directly counter to Islam’s claims of equality.

CASTE AMONG INDIAN MUSLIMS

In addition to the elevation of Muhammad’s bloodline, there is also an elevation of Arabs and Iranians over darker-skinned Muslims. This elevation is at its most prominent in the Indian subcontinent where it takes the form of an explicit caste system. Among Indian Muslims, there has been a general divide between “noble” castes (usually called the ashraf) and “inferior” castes (called by various names, but here we will use ajlaf) since medieval times. Far from being imposed by Hindus, this caste system developed along Islamic lines and has been defended using Islamic texts.10

Ideas of “caste-based superiority and inferiority still do play an important role in Indian Muslim society,” according to Indian scholar Yoginder Sikand.11 Sikand identifies two characteristics of the caste divide which have been present since medieval times. One is the persistence of racial differences in marking the divide. To medieval Islamic writers, Muslims of Arab, Central Asian, Iranian, or Afghan origin were clearly superior in status to local Indian converts (and the former tended to be lighter-skinned than the latter). Another difference involves occupation. The ashraf have tended to belong to “dominant political elites”—wealthy landowners, court advisors, and such—while the ajlaf have long been associated with ancestral professions as artisans and peasants.12

A key illustration of the development of this system comes in the 14th century work of a Turkish scholar named Ziauddin Barani. Barani composed the only known “treatise exclusively devoted to political theory under the Delhi Sultanate.” In his treatise he develops a doctrine and social vision which he says should be held by an ideal Muslim ruler. Barani advises this Sultan, as Sikander describes, to regard it as “a religious duty to deny the ajlaf access to knowledge” on account of their being “mean and despicable” people. He also expounds on a theory of the innate inferiority of the ajlaf in which he claims that Allah assigned qualities—including baseness and moral character—into all human souls at the beginning of time. Because of this assignation, Barani argues, it would interfere with Allah’s plan to seek to elevate the ajlaf to a position of social equality with their betters.13

Although the Qur’an and early Islamic practice emphasized egalitarianism among believers, as the religion spread beyond Arabia and came to include more non-Arab groups this practice was increasingly abandoned. Notions of the importance of birth and wealth came to assume as much a role in determining the relative status of Muslims. As Sikand notes:

Actual Muslim social practice, including in India, points to the existence of sharp social hierarchies that numerous Muslim scholars have sought to provide appropriate “Islamic” sanction [for] through elaborate rules.14

In time, another element which played a role in determining social status was race.

RACISM IN ISLAM

One of Islam’s greatest acts of religious deception ever might be using America’s racist past to convince Black Americans to convert. Leaving aside the sheer enormity of black slavery in Islam (which will be discussed in detail in the next section), racism is alive and well in the Islamic world. Even today, many Arabs retain a centuries-old attitude of disdain and contempt for non-Arabs in general and black Africans in particular. One of the most common slurs for Africans in the Muslim world is “Abd,” an Arabic word meaning slave.

Although Islam does not officially sanction racial prejudice and inequality, such beliefs are often “baked in” to its textual traditions. For example, in the Hadith we see Muhammad signaling a man out for insult by associating his race with evil:

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 … Gabriel came to Muhammad and said, “If a black man comes to you his heart is more gross than a donkey’s.”15

In another story, Muhammad instructs his followers, “Listen and obey (your chief) even if an Ethiopian whose head is like a raisin were made your chief.”16 The Hadith also contains plenty of racist discussions of Noah’s son Ham being the origin of Africans and the justification for slavery. There was a similar tradition among European peoples about the “Curse of Ham” as a justification for black slavery. But the key difference here is that the European tradition was simply a fanciful interpretation. Since the account about the inferiority of Ham’s descendants is in the Hadith, it is considered authoritative in Islam.

As a result of such stories, there is still a mindset of racial superiority among Arabs. Islam officially commands racial equality, but for Arabs this equality does not quite extend to blacks.17 Samuel Cotton, a black American who investigated slavery in Mauritania in the 1990s observed this attitude up close:

The problem is that Mauritania’s Arabs sincerely believe that blacks are inferior and are born to be slaves. They believe that a black man, woman or child’s place in life is to serve an Arab master.18

In 2010, a Canadian diplomat kidnapped by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghred (AQIM) terror group in Mali observed the same thing even among jihadists. “They preached equality,” he noted, “but did not practice it. Sub-Saharan Africans were clearly second class in the eyes of the AQIM.”19 In 2011, the AQIM split along racial lines over the issue.

Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy calls racism “the Arab world’s dirty secret.” It is not merely a case of discrimination, she points out, but has actually led to violence and death. In 2005, riot policemen in Cairo trampled or beat to death some 28 people while trying to clear a camp of 2,500 Sudanese refugees. Between 2007 and 2008, Egyptian guards at the Israel border have killed “at least 33 migrants, many from Sudan’s Darfur region, including a pregnant woman and a 7-year-old girl.”20 Eltahawy accuses her fellow Egyptians of remaining silent in the face of such abuses.

Arab countries today are often criticized for running de facto apartheid regimes. This is the case in Mauritania. In Sudan, mistreatment at the hands of Arab rulers prompted a secession movement which led to the creation of South Sudan.21 In the chapter on the Gulf Cooperation Council in this book, I detailed the widespread mistreatment of non-Arab workers—even fellow Muslims—which is rampant on the Arabian Peninsula.

SLAVERY IN ISLAM

In order to appreciate the significance of slavery in Islam, it is necessary to recognize the differences between Islamic and New World slavery. The Arab world dealt in African slaves well before Islam and continued to do so for about a century after the European world had outlawed the practice for itself. Exact figures on the number of people involved are difficult to come by, but by one scholar’s estimate it could have been as many as 25 million.22 Historical estimates are largely agreed that “the total volume of African slaves acquired by Muslim masters is greater than the total acquired by Europeans in the Americas.”23 Slavery was only outlawed on the Arabian Peninsula after pressure from President John F. Kennedy on Saudi Arabia inspired a change.24 The last country in the world to outlaw slavery was the Islamic Republic of Mauritania in 1981. Also, unlike the Atlantic slave trade, the Islamic world also dealt in white slavery, with more than one million Europeans captured along the Barbary Coast alone between 1538 and 1780.25 This figure does not include the numerous Eastern European people enslaved by the Ottoman Empire.

It is often emphasized that Muhammad’s teachings led to better treatment of slaves in the Islamic world. While this is true, the situation is comparable to the one discussed in the previous chapter on women’s rights. Islam may have represented an improvement over previous barbaric customs, but that one improvement was as far as it went. In the Christian West, the anti-slavery movement originated in grassroots religious teachings. In the Islamic world, slavery remained an acceptable institution because it was accepted as normal and right by Muhammad and is treated as such in the Qur’an and the Hadith.26

In fact, the injunctions placed by Islam against enslaving fellow Muslims most likely encouraged the massive importation of slaves from outside the Islamic world.27 By codifying the practice of slavery in religious edicts, Islam seems to have done more to allow the institution to expand and remain in place than to deter it.28 For example, in Islam it was lawful for male masters to have sex with their female slaves and captives (regardless of their consent). Purchasing female slaves for the purpose of sexual gratification was perfectly acceptable in Islam, and as one scholar notes, “this was the most common motive for the purchase of slaves throughout Islamic history.”29 This is most likely why the gender ratio in the Islamic slave trade was so imbalanced—two females were imported for every male, compared to the Atlantic slave trade where the opposite ratio was in effect.30

In addition to their use in concubinage, slaves were used for labor and military service. The labor was quite brutal and carried a notably high death toll. As late as the 19th century, Western travelers in Muslim lands remarked upon the high death rate among the black slaves.31 Despite the practice having no religious or even legal backing, it was quite common for male slaves in the Islamic world to be castrated.32 Using slaves as soldiers was also common, with warrior castes such as the Mamluks in Egypt emerging to become powerful in their own right. After a slave rebellion in 1250, these soldiers governed Egypt and part of Arabia and the Near East as the Mamluk Sultanate until 1517.

Most importantly, slavery is not a distant memory in the Islamic world. As late as 1953, the sheikhs of Qatar attended Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation with slaves in their retinue. Among Salafist and traditional religious groups there is still marked support for the institution of slavery. In 2003, a high-level Saudi jurist named Shaykh Saleh Al-Fawzan issued a statement insisting that slavery was part of Islam. Another prominent Saudi cleric, Shaikh Saad Al-Buraik encouraged Palestinians to enslave Jewish women as part of their jihad. The U.S. State Department describes Saudi Arabia and much of the Arabian Peninsula as a destination for men and women being trafficked for the purpose of labor exploitation.

EXPLOITATION OF NON-MUSLIMS

In addition to slavery, the House of Peace has also seen (and still sees) considerable discrimination against non-Muslims. The treatment of non-Muslims in Islamic lands derives largely from the Pact of Umar, an alleged peace accord offered by the Caliph Umar to the Christians of Syria. Treatment of dhimmi (i.e., “protected persons”) in large part arises from this 7th century text and the inherent inferiority of non-Muslims evident in Islamic thought.

The “pact” involves a series of promises made by the Christians in exchange for protection. In this regard it is not unlike a protection racket run by the mafia. They promise “not [to] manifest our religion publicly nor convert anyone to it,” and to “show respect toward the Muslims, and we shall rise from our seats when they wish to sit.” They agree to wear distinctive clothing and hairstyles and to provide shelter and board to any Muslim who requires it. Significantly, they also give up the right to hold public office or to bear arms.33 Not mentioned in the pact but required by the Qur’an was the payment of a jizya tax, which could be as much as 50 percent of income.

Even if the Pact of Umar represented an advance in its treatment of non-Muslims, it is important to recognize that further advances have not taken place since the 7th century. Across the Muslim world, persecution and violence have been increasing in recent years. In 2012, the U.S. State Department’s report on religious freedom showed an increase in abuse of Christians and Jews in Muslim countries. Egypt, Nigeria, Sudan, Iran, Libya, and Tunisia were among the countries cited:

In Sudan, Islamist rioters burned down an evangelical church compound. In Libya, terrorists burned an Orthodox church, and Muslim radicals murdered hundreds of Christians in Nigeria.34

As a result, non-Muslims have been fleeing from Muslim countries in significant numbers. A century ago, Christians made up 20 percent of the populations of the Middle East and North Africa. These regions have been home to Christian populations since the first century. Yet today, the region is only 4 percent Christian and 1.6 percent Jewish.35 In Egypt, a “climate of fear and uncertainty” has arisen for Coptic Christian families. Muslim radicals order Christian girls in the street to cover their hair and hit them if they refuse. An imam discussing this issue on television went so far as to say that any woman not wearing the hijab or veil in public was “asking to get raped.”36 In Syria, Christians who attempted to flee Muslim persecutions were prevented by roadblocks. Armed Islamic militias set them up to target fleeing Christians for robbery, kidnapping, and slaughter.37

Such actions are in keeping with the demands made upon Muslims by the Qur’an and the Hadith. The Qur’an enjoins Muslims not to be friendly with non-Muslims,38 and explains that the towns and cities of the unbelievers have been destroyed as a sign to them.39 Muslims are also told repeatedly that abuse of infidels isn’t really wrong. Killing an infidel in Muslim lands isn’t the same as killing a Muslim, after all.40 Abusive or degrading treatment of dhimmis is acceptable.41

THE HAJJ

Even fellow Muslims are taken advantage of in the House of Peace. One of the biggest scams is called the Hajj. The Hajj is a pilgrimage to Mecca which all Muslims are supposed to make at least once in their lives. It is presented as a holy and necessary religious ritual— yet it is hard to ignore that the Saudis treat pilgrims like cattle and make out like bandits.

The Hajj is the largest annual pilgrimage in the world by attendance, with an average of around 2.5 million attending each year. The event has several rituals associated with it. There is a circumambulation around the Kaaba, the cube-shaped building towards which all Muslims turn in prayer each day. The pilgrims race between the twin hills of Al-Marwah and Al-Safa and drink from the Zamzam Well. They visit the plains of Mount Arafat to stand in vigil. There is a ritual stoning of the devil back in town and pilgrims shave their heads and perform an animal sacrifice.

Given the nature of the event, the Hajj has been the site of politically-motivated violence. The most notable example of this came during the 1979 Hajj, when, as mentioned in a previous chapter, hundreds of Saudi religious fanatics took over the Grand Mosque. Saudi Arabian troops besieged the mosque for two weeks. By the time the sect members were dislodged, 227 troops and fighters were killed. The incident was enormously unsettling to the Saudi regime, which began making concessions to its religious authorities in the years afterward. Another incident occurred in 1987 when about 400 people, most of them Iranian Shia pilgrims, “were killed in clashes with security forces during anti-Western protests.”42

Some of the rituals involved in the Hajj, such as the race between the hills and the stoning of the devil, are potentially deadly. Pedestrian tunnels get filled with surging crowds and a stampede can break out resulting in dozens or even hundreds of deaths. The worst modern example came in 1990 when a tunnel stampede killed 1,426 pilgrims, many of them Muslims from Malaysia, Indonesia, and Pakistan.43 Another deadly stampede came in 2006, where 345 people were killed and hundreds of others injured. This one began when pilgrims tripped over dropped luggage on their way to perform the stoning of the devil ritual.44 Over 3,000 people have been killed by stampedes, demonstrations, fires, and even terror attacks at the Hajj since the 1979 Grand Mosque incident.45

Since Mecca is a bit smaller than Nashville, Tennessee in surface area, cramming in over two million visitors produces a breeding ground for illness. In addition to the usual colds, flus, and infections passed around at such gatherings, the Hajj has also been ground zero for the appearance of new illnesses. Thanks to the practice of shaving the head, the Hajj also sees its share of transmission of blood-borne illnesses as well. Some pilgrims will engage in a communal head shaving, shaving each other’s heads using and reusing unsterilized blades—a common disease vector. Pilgrims are at risk of contracting HIV or one of various strains of hepatitis thanks to this practice.46

Given the scale of the Hajj, it has become big business for Saudi Arabia and local business owners. For Saudi Arabia, the event can bring in some $10 billion or more in annual revenue.47 Mecca landowners have consequently seen a significant boom over the past 30 years, with property going from around $3 per square meter in the 70s to $22,000 today.48 Pilgrims can spend a great deal of money, as well. Travel groups specializing in the Hajj in North America say it can cost Muslims between $4,000 and $15,000 to make the journey.49 It’s not unheard of for pilgrims in poorer countries to sell their houses or take out loans to make their mandatory spiritual journey. Prices have skyrocketed along with property costs as well, leading some to ask if the Mecca journey is only for the rich.50

Despite the spirit of equality which is expected to prevail, the Saudi government has increasingly imposed restrictions arising from political and possibly ethnic motivations. The Saudis have imposed restrictions on Iranian pilgrims several times since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. In 2010, there was a blanket ban on women from Morocco coming into Saudi Arabia based on allegations that some women were coming into the kingdom to work as prostitutes. In 2012, hundreds of Nigerian women were taken from their trip to the Hajj and deported over concerns about illegal immigration.51

This last point has become a sore spot for Saudi Arabia. As many as 10 percent of pilgrims in the country on Hajj visas every year reportedly overstay their trip. While there are no official numbers, Saudi newspapers often have stories about arrests of dozens of illegal immigrants, some of them implicated in drug-running and prostitution schemes. Areas in Mecca and other nearby cities develop into slums of the forgotten. Despite repeated efforts to crack down on the practice and punish Saudis who shelter or hire illegal immigrants, many thousands continue to make a living in the country. “Feeding my children and keeping them away from starvation” is the reason one African migrant gave to a journalist investigating the phenomenon.52 According to another investigation, some inhabitants of “forgotten areas” of Saudi Arabia can end up living in legal limbo “for generations.”53 The governor of Mecca Province in 2012 estimated that there were about one million illegal residents living in that province’s slums.54

Despite Islam’s claims of equality and peace, it offers neither. West Pakistan fought a genocidal war against East Pakistan in which three million people were killed. These were both Muslim countries. Between 1980 and 1988 Iran and Iraq fought a deadly war that included the use of chemical and biological weapons. One million people were killed, almost all of them Muslims. Even today, the majority of the conflicts in Muslim nations— in Pakistan, Iraq, and Egypt for example—are conflicts between Muslims. Is this a house of peace?

On top of that, as we have seen in this chapter, there is persistent inequality among Muslim people. Muslims who are not Arabs are not equal to Arabs, and Arabs who are not descendants of Muhammad are not equal to those who are. Black Muslims are particularly looked down upon; for nearly 1,400 years Africa served as a chief supplier of slaves to the Islamic ummah. As a religion, Islam has inequality built in to its fundamental beliefs. Slavery is acceptable. Abuse and contempt for non-Muslims is acceptable and even mandatory. In modern times, traditional dhimmi protections have sometimes gone by the wayside, prompting a mass exodus of non-Muslims from Islamic lands. Even fellow Muslims are subject to exploitation.

But in one important sense, the concept of the ummah is correct. Wherever Muslims are, they identify primarily with this trans-national “state” far more than the country where they reside. Their faith requires them to work to transform their nations into members of the ummah. Once this is accomplished, however, neither equality nor peace is established. What is established is a doctrine of Arab supremacy.