Hyper-intellectual, spiritually sexual, woman lover, womanist, lover of love.. .I could go on for days. In the end, I'm a grown woman who has finally decided to love unconditionally.
As I step back and notice what I am drawn to... I see myself loving Muslim, Queer, comedy, racial minority, woman, music, love.
They are completely different formulations,” said one spokesperson of two antiperspirants with the exact same percentages of the exact same ingredients.
![cosmicyoruba:
theeducatedfieldnegro:
Bismillah-ir-Rahman ir-Raheem..
(In the Name of God the Most Gracious the Most Merciful)
I would be carefully aware of how I use every word when I present information as such. Dealing with religion —in this case Islam— it is very important to separate the fundamental doctrine of that religion and its earliest origins from those who have helped spread and advanced that belief. In addition, when approaching historical events, for a fair and more accurate analysis, one must cease to look through the same prism as he views other historical events that happen in different geographical and cultural spheres. By this I mean looking at how racism played a pivotal role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and subsequently colonization, it’s vital to separate and analyze this form of slavery and racism from the same that happens elsewhere. To begin, I will start with a brief hadith (traditions and sayings) of the Prophet Muhammad. In his last sermon he addresses this issue by stating,
“O People, listen to me in earnest, worship God (The One Creator of the Universe), perform your five daily prayers (Salah), fast during the month of Ramadan, and give your financial obligation (zakah) of your wealth. Perform Hajj if you can afford to.
All mankind is from Adam and Eve. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to yourselves.
Remember, one day you will appear before God (The Creator) and you will answer for your deeds. So beware, do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone” [1].
Before I briefly discuss the rise of Islam in Africa and the trading of slaves throughout the continent, I will first begin with the present and then work my way back throughout history. You stated that many (I’m assuming you’re referring to sub-Saharan Africans) are adopting modern Christianity (whatever modern means) as their religion now-a-days. However, your statement is incorrect. Islam not only continues to grow at a vast rate in Africa, but it’s the fastest growing religion globally. As stated in Charlotte and Frederick Quinn’s book Pride, Faith and Fear: Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa,
“Nearly one in every five persons in the world is Muslim, and Islam is spreading more rapidly in sub‐Saharan Africa than any other religion, despite the vigorous efforts of Christian missionaries. Both Christian and Muslim proselytizers feed off the remains of rapidly diminishing traditional religious communities. The growth of Islamic numbers in Africa is due to conversions but possibly even more to the rapid expansion of populations that are already Muslim. Within the past 15 years, estimates of the size of the African Muslim community have grown from 120 million to between 150 million and 160 million—over 30% of sub‐Saharan Africa’s total population. In East Africa, over 40% of the population, some 60 million individuals, are Muslim. In West Africa, there are over 80 million Muslims. In Nigeria alone, Muslims are estimated to number some 58 million. (In 1963, the date of the last official census, Nigeria’s Muslim population was 26 million.) Southern Africa has some 4 million Muslims” [2].
With that cleared up, let me address why you grossly oversimplified and merged the relationship between the trans-Saharan trade (particularly that of slaves) to that of the rise of Islam in Africa, as if slavery and the origins of Islam on the continent were synonymous. As I stated earlier, looking at the trading of slaves throughout the African continent vis-à-vis the trans-Atlantic slave trade, renders any and all outcomes of your analysis invalid. With the rise of the capitalist mode of production, the trans-Atlantic slave trade functioned more as an enterprise, aiding to the advancement of this new system at the time. One of the main goals of such a triangular trade was to benefit the metropole, while at the expense of exploiting Africans (using them as a means of labor), their land and resources. This form of slavery is in a myriad of ways different from how it has functioned and has been viewed hitherto. The exploitation of Africans acquired by Arabs on the other hand, functioned more in a feudal context. As Walter Rodney states, “African slaves in Arab hands became domestics, soldiers, and agricultural serfs. Whatever surplus they produced was not for reinvestment and multiplication of capital, as in the West Indian and North American slave systems but for consumption by the feudal elites. Indeed, slaves were often maintained more for social prestige than for economic benefit” [3]. Slavery is not a new phenomenon (when I say new, I mean relatively recent in a ‘historical sense’, which can date back several centuries.) by no means. And though racism and social class structures my help propel this form of servitude; it’s certainly not limited to it (e.g., Often times in war, captives are then forced into slavery; Walter Rodney addresses this in his book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa).
In your ask you stated,
“The islamic faith is not native to people of African descent, it was forced upon them during the Saharan “slave trade”, & evidently Arabs have little respect for Black practitioners.
It is true that Islam is not a native religion to the African continent, only dating back to the eighth century in West Africa. And yes, racial and ethnic distinctions existed; this is quite evident in the name of Sudan, which is Arabic for “Land of the Blacks” (Bilad al-Sudan). However the rise of Islam in Africa was a much more complex and gradual process then your statement leads one to believe. Margari Hill breaks down the emergences of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa in three main stages, containment, mixing, and reform. She addresses the following as such,
“. In the first stage, African kings contained Muslim influence by segregating Muslim communities, in the second stage African rulers blended Islam with local traditions as the population selectively appropriated Islamic practices, and finally in the third stage, African Muslims pressed for reforms in an effort to rid their societies of mixed practices and implement Shariah. This three-phase framework helps sheds light on the historical development of the medieval empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay and the 19th century jihads that led to the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate in Hausaland and the Umarian state in Senegambia” [4]
There is an extensive amount of scholarly research done on this topic, ranging from a variety of historic fatwas (legal rulings in doubtful situation) some of which “concerned an unfulfilled contract made in Ifrlqiya for trade in the Bilaid al-Sfidan, the second a dispute over the inheritance of a merchant who had died in the Bilad al-Sfidan” to studies focusing on racial and cultural mixing between Arabs and Africans [5]. I would highly recommend you to do research before making such statements. Though racist sentiment towards Blacks and those who are of darker hue in North Africa and the Middle East maybe high, one must make the distinction between those who profess a particular faith and the religious tenets of the faith itself. Islam isn’t “Arab”, and many Muslim societies throughout the world still retain their very own cultural identities (e.g., Nigeria). Before wrapping up, I feel that it’s important to note that Arabs only compromise 15% of Muslims worldwide, which may be shocking to many [6]. On a more personal note, I chose Islam from a theological basis. I was brought up in a Christian household, however as I matured and saw things for myself, I personally saw flaws and a lot of ambiguity in the Christian faith that didn’t sit well in my heart.
Sources:
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/imam-abdullah-antepli/the-last-sermon-of-prophe_b_1252185.html
[2] Quinn, Charlotte A., and Frederick Quinn. “Introduction.” … n.d. Web. 29 May. 2012. <http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195063864.001.0001/acprof-9780195063868-chapter-1>.
[3] Rodney, W. How europe underdeveloped africa. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1982.
[4] http://spice.stanford.edu/docs/the_spread_of_islam_in_west_africa_containment_mixing_and_reform_from_the_eighth_to_the_twentieth_century/
[5] Michael Brett. “Islam and Trade in the Bilād Al-Sūdān, Tenth-Eleventh Century A.D.”
The Journal of African History , Vol. 24, No. 4 (1983), pp. 431-440 Cambridge University Press
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/181252
[6] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/questions/types/index.html
I think people need to understand that Islam spread through the African continent in many ways. Yes some people accepted the religion freely and yes trade encouraged the religion to spread.
/cue rambling
But at the same time, as I mentioned in this post, there were African communities that converted to Islam en masse because they feared been taken as slaves in the trans Saharan slave trade and wanted part of the privilege that says no Muslim can enslave another Muslim. Apart from this, there were active Arab missionaries in several African countries centuries ago, ibn Battuta mentions staying in the “Arab quarter” in the Mali kingdom. Not all the Arabs in that quarter were traders, some had come there to bring Islam to African communities. Moving on, there were groups of Muslims who did force, or at least try to force Islam, on African communities that were not willing. This is something Ousmane Sembene touches upon in his film, Ceddo (which was censored in Senegal for its “anti-Muslim” themes).
I also feel the need to mention that the current “concept of racialisation” which people say was born in the 15th-16th century had its predecessor in the Arab enslavement of Africans. We can’t say that Arab slave trade was not based on ethnicity when there was a continued enslavement of African Muslims despite this being forbidden in Islam. Perhaps in the beginning, their trade wasn’t based on ethnicity but somewhere along the line things changed. If it wasn’t about skin colour, then why did scholars from Timbuktu feel the need to come out and remind everyone that Muslims were not supposed to enslave each other, a law that was ignored when the Muslims were African. While reading about historical relations between China and East Africa, it was interesting to note how Chinese perceptions of Africans changed due to the manner in which Arab traders and merchants in Canton treated their African slaves. The enslavement dehumanised Africans who were priorly heroic and magical but then became savages and “devil slaves”. I wrote about this here, and to quote myself, this is “the same old story of how slavery dehumanizes people in the eyes of others”. When one considers that Arabs kept slaves from all ethnicities, including from the Caucasus regions, it begs the question why only the African slaves were dehumanised. The only other time African people were similarly dehumanised in the eyes of others was due to the European slave trade.
In theory, Islam is anti-racist and does not place one ethnic group above the other, but in practice is it almost 100% different. Maybe at a point in the past, several African societies were able to hold on fast to their own cultural identities while being Muslim but it looks like this is fast fading. Speaking of Nigeria, there are Nigerian Muslims who believe that anything Arab is best. Now, predominantly Muslim Nigerian ethnic groups are claiming Arab heritage because they believe that this makes them better and more “authentic” Muslims. Again this is something I’ve talked about before. The ways in which Islam was localised and practised are been put down as haram because they are not “authentic”. I’ve been told by other Nigerian Muslims that in al-Jannah, the only language spoken is Arabic…Arab supremacy is alive and well, and the truth of the matter is that Islam plays a role in it.
Preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeach!!!!!!](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4te29IEKC1qduxmio1_1280.jpg)
Bismillah-ir-Rahman ir-Raheem..
(In the Name of God the Most Gracious the Most Merciful)
I would be carefully aware of how I use every word when I present information as such. Dealing with religion —in this case Islam— it is very important to separate the fundamental doctrine of that religion and its earliest origins from those who have helped spread and advanced that belief. In addition, when approaching historical events, for a fair and more accurate analysis, one must cease to look through the same prism as he views other historical events that happen in different geographical and cultural spheres. By this I mean looking at how racism played a pivotal role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and subsequently colonization, it’s vital to separate and analyze this form of slavery and racism from the same that happens elsewhere. To begin, I will start with a brief hadith (traditions and sayings) of the Prophet Muhammad. In his last sermon he addresses this issue by stating,
“O People, listen to me in earnest, worship God (The One Creator of the Universe), perform your five daily prayers (Salah), fast during the month of Ramadan, and give your financial obligation (zakah) of your wealth. Perform Hajj if you can afford to.
All mankind is from Adam and Eve. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to yourselves.
Remember, one day you will appear before God (The Creator) and you will answer for your deeds. So beware, do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone” [1].
Before I briefly discuss the rise of Islam in Africa and the trading of slaves throughout the continent, I will first begin with the present and then work my way back throughout history. You stated that many (I’m assuming you’re referring to sub-Saharan Africans) are adopting modern Christianity (whatever modern means) as their religion now-a-days. However, your statement is incorrect. Islam not only continues to grow at a vast rate in Africa, but it’s the fastest growing religion globally. As stated in Charlotte and Frederick Quinn’s book Pride, Faith and Fear: Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa,
“Nearly one in every five persons in the world is Muslim, and Islam is spreading more rapidly in sub‐Saharan Africa than any other religion, despite the vigorous efforts of Christian missionaries. Both Christian and Muslim proselytizers feed off the remains of rapidly diminishing traditional religious communities. The growth of Islamic numbers in Africa is due to conversions but possibly even more to the rapid expansion of populations that are already Muslim. Within the past 15 years, estimates of the size of the African Muslim community have grown from 120 million to between 150 million and 160 million—over 30% of sub‐Saharan Africa’s total population. In East Africa, over 40% of the population, some 60 million individuals, are Muslim. In West Africa, there are over 80 million Muslims. In Nigeria alone, Muslims are estimated to number some 58 million. (In 1963, the date of the last official census, Nigeria’s Muslim population was 26 million.) Southern Africa has some 4 million Muslims” [2].
With that cleared up, let me address why you grossly oversimplified and merged the relationship between the trans-Saharan trade (particularly that of slaves) to that of the rise of Islam in Africa, as if slavery and the origins of Islam on the continent were synonymous. As I stated earlier, looking at the trading of slaves throughout the African continent vis-à-vis the trans-Atlantic slave trade, renders any and all outcomes of your analysis invalid. With the rise of the capitalist mode of production, the trans-Atlantic slave trade functioned more as an enterprise, aiding to the advancement of this new system at the time. One of the main goals of such a triangular trade was to benefit the metropole, while at the expense of exploiting Africans (using them as a means of labor), their land and resources. This form of slavery is in a myriad of ways different from how it has functioned and has been viewed hitherto. The exploitation of Africans acquired by Arabs on the other hand, functioned more in a feudal context. As Walter Rodney states, “African slaves in Arab hands became domestics, soldiers, and agricultural serfs. Whatever surplus they produced was not for reinvestment and multiplication of capital, as in the West Indian and North American slave systems but for consumption by the feudal elites. Indeed, slaves were often maintained more for social prestige than for economic benefit” [3]. Slavery is not a new phenomenon (when I say new, I mean relatively recent in a ‘historical sense’, which can date back several centuries.) by no means. And though racism and social class structures my help propel this form of servitude; it’s certainly not limited to it (e.g., Often times in war, captives are then forced into slavery; Walter Rodney addresses this in his book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa).
In your ask you stated,
“The islamic faith is not native to people of African descent, it was forced upon them during the Saharan “slave trade”, & evidently Arabs have little respect for Black practitioners.
It is true that Islam is not a native religion to the African continent, only dating back to the eighth century in West Africa. And yes, racial and ethnic distinctions existed; this is quite evident in the name of Sudan, which is Arabic for “Land of the Blacks” (Bilad al-Sudan). However the rise of Islam in Africa was a much more complex and gradual process then your statement leads one to believe. Margari Hill breaks down the emergences of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa in three main stages, containment, mixing, and reform. She addresses the following as such,
“. In the first stage, African kings contained Muslim influence by segregating Muslim communities, in the second stage African rulers blended Islam with local traditions as the population selectively appropriated Islamic practices, and finally in the third stage, African Muslims pressed for reforms in an effort to rid their societies of mixed practices and implement Shariah. This three-phase framework helps sheds light on the historical development of the medieval empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay and the 19th century jihads that led to the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate in Hausaland and the Umarian state in Senegambia” [4]
There is an extensive amount of scholarly research done on this topic, ranging from a variety of historic fatwas (legal rulings in doubtful situation) some of which “concerned an unfulfilled contract made in Ifrlqiya for trade in the Bilaid al-Sfidan, the second a dispute over the inheritance of a merchant who had died in the Bilad al-Sfidan” to studies focusing on racial and cultural mixing between Arabs and Africans [5]. I would highly recommend you to do research before making such statements. Though racist sentiment towards Blacks and those who are of darker hue in North Africa and the Middle East maybe high, one must make the distinction between those who profess a particular faith and the religious tenets of the faith itself. Islam isn’t “Arab”, and many Muslim societies throughout the world still retain their very own cultural identities (e.g., Nigeria). Before wrapping up, I feel that it’s important to note that Arabs only compromise 15% of Muslims worldwide, which may be shocking to many [6]. On a more personal note, I chose Islam from a theological basis. I was brought up in a Christian household, however as I matured and saw things for myself, I personally saw flaws and a lot of ambiguity in the Christian faith that didn’t sit well in my heart.
Sources:
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/imam-abdullah-antepli/the-last-sermon-of-prophe_b_1252185.html
[2] Quinn, Charlotte A., and Frederick Quinn. “Introduction.” … n.d. Web. 29 May. 2012. <http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195063864.001.0001/acprof-9780195063868-chapter-1>.
[3] Rodney, W. How europe underdeveloped africa. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1982.
[4] http://spice.stanford.edu/docs/the_spread_of_islam_in_west_africa_containment_mixing_and_reform_from_the_eighth_to_the_twentieth_century/
[5] Michael Brett. “Islam and Trade in the Bilād Al-Sūdān, Tenth-Eleventh Century A.D.”
The Journal of African History , Vol. 24, No. 4 (1983), pp. 431-440 Cambridge University Press
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/181252
[6] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/questions/types/index.html
I think people need to understand that Islam spread through the African continent in many ways. Yes some people accepted the religion freely and yes trade encouraged the religion to spread.
/cue rambling
But at the same time, as I mentioned in this post, there were African communities that converted to Islam en masse because they feared been taken as slaves in the trans Saharan slave trade and wanted part of the privilege that says no Muslim can enslave another Muslim. Apart from this, there were active Arab missionaries in several African countries centuries ago, ibn Battuta mentions staying in the “Arab quarter” in the Mali kingdom. Not all the Arabs in that quarter were traders, some had come there to bring Islam to African communities. Moving on, there were groups of Muslims who did force, or at least try to force Islam, on African communities that were not willing. This is something Ousmane Sembene touches upon in his film, Ceddo (which was censored in Senegal for its “anti-Muslim” themes).
I also feel the need to mention that the current “concept of racialisation” which people say was born in the 15th-16th century had its predecessor in the Arab enslavement of Africans. We can’t say that Arab slave trade was not based on ethnicity when there was a continued enslavement of African Muslims despite this being forbidden in Islam. Perhaps in the beginning, their trade wasn’t based on ethnicity but somewhere along the line things changed. If it wasn’t about skin colour, then why did scholars from Timbuktu feel the need to come out and remind everyone that Muslims were not supposed to enslave each other, a law that was ignored when the Muslims were African. While reading about historical relations between China and East Africa, it was interesting to note how Chinese perceptions of Africans changed due to the manner in which Arab traders and merchants in Canton treated their African slaves. The enslavement dehumanised Africans who were priorly heroic and magical but then became savages and “devil slaves”. I wrote about this here, and to quote myself, this is “the same old story of how slavery dehumanizes people in the eyes of others”. When one considers that Arabs kept slaves from all ethnicities, including from the Caucasus regions, it begs the question why only the African slaves were dehumanised. The only other time African people were similarly dehumanised in the eyes of others was due to the European slave trade.
In theory, Islam is anti-racist and does not place one ethnic group above the other, but in practice is it almost 100% different. Maybe at a point in the past, several African societies were able to hold on fast to their own cultural identities while being Muslim but it looks like this is fast fading. Speaking of Nigeria, there are Nigerian Muslims who believe that anything Arab is best. Now, predominantly Muslim Nigerian ethnic groups are claiming Arab heritage because they believe that this makes them better and more “authentic” Muslims. Again this is something I’ve talked about before. The ways in which Islam was localised and practised are been put down as haram because they are not “authentic”. I’ve been told by other Nigerian Muslims that in al-Jannah, the only language spoken is Arabic…Arab supremacy is alive and well, and the truth of the matter is that Islam plays a role in it.
Preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeach!!!!!!
When we ponder the concepts of religion and queerness, what images and issues come to mind?
In discussions involving religion and LGBT issues for QPOC, the focus in mainstream media has almost always been on Christian families, churches, and communities, and the degree to…
Iman +Willi Ninja - Thierry Mugler
YES. We have been partaking in a friends Vogue classes lately. It’s our first time, but I’ve been thinking of ninja and drying to feel my inner diva and HIT. THESE. POSES.
@SirJoQ + his crew does it well.
P.S. Architecture. Voguing all over the world.
(Source: butchqueen)
Morning Breath
Covered, wrapped in
warm sheets, bare, bodies
are we, your back against my
breast I lay my head
next yours, kissing the softness
of your neck, as you speak
the taste of last night’s sex
lingers on your morning breath
Yass!!!!
Me n Her
- Me: There's a line in a song that I like. Don't laugh... Superbass by Nicki Minaj. Sometimes I sing that to you.. about you. I just swap the hes with shes and the hims with hers and so on..
- Her: (lookin at me all ... mmmmhmmmm y'all know the look)
- Me: *clears throat* well I love it when you look at me like that.
- Her: *raises brow*
- Me: Let's just say this line reminds me of that look.
- Her: What's the line, baby?
- Me: "She aint gotta even put the mack on. She just gotta gimme that look. When she gimme that look then the panties commin off. off."
- Her: *flashes that smile that melts my heart.*
- Me: That's the look that you gave me last night...
Sometimes I wonder if I should stop aggressively protecting LGBTQ* Muslims because I should not have to justify my and my friends’ very existence.
But then I remember how I was when I was still in the closet.
I wanted to see justification so badly.
I wanted to see proud LGBTQ* Muslims who were…
i really think the myth of the black man shortage has reinforced black male privilege and fucked up gender dynamics even more so.
—One of my good friends. I loveth her. (via jonubian)
It wasn’t until I started reading and found books they wouldn’t let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.
