What’s wrong with racism?

By: Oyon Ajmain

The Ummah and humanity nowadays is so diverse that almost every other friend an individual has is of a different race to himself. Me personally, I have a mix of friends who are black, white, asian, arab etc and sometimes when I hang out with them they make harmless jokes which borderline racism.

I’m sure many of us one time or another made a comment about our own friends who are from different races as a joke which we saw as harmless and innocent. Now before we go any further, I’d like to ask you all a question:
“Is there anybody on this earth that can guarantee that they won’t die?”
If the answer to that question for yourself was no then ask yourself, does the angel of death discriminate amongst people? Will the angel of death hesitate to take your life if you come from a certain race? If you get your arms cut off will you feel pain? Then after if your friend from a different ethnic group gets his arms cut off, will he feel pain?

If both of you feel pain, and both of you are guaranteed to die and there is no discrimination between these two facts. Then what gives us the right to think we’re better than someone because of where we come from?

Now a lot of us see tribalism as such a big thing to the extent we actually hate people who come from certain tribes. To the extent we don’t let our daughters or sisters marry people from that tribe just because of they come from a different tribe. We uphold all these restrictions and hate towards tribes other than our own, but then these same individuals will openly sin and do prohibited things that will lead them to hellfire without every hating the sin they do. Without EVER hating the shaytaan that makes them fall into that sin. Instead of hating on people who come from different backgrounds we should be hating on shaytaan who stays up day and night plotting and planning everyday how to take us to the hellfire. Tribalism doesn’t die yet the hate for shaytaan dies so easily….

On that final note, always remember. Shaytaan became shaytaan due to his arrogance and racism towards Adam (as) because he thought he was better than him. Everytime you think you’re better than someone because of where you come from, you are DIRECTLY following shaytaans footsteps……Ponder on that point whenever you feel a racist thought running through your head.