By Nanauzir
As we all know by now, Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenage boy, was gunned down by the police while walking to his grandmother’s house in the middle of the afternoon. For the past few days, my Facebook news feed has been filled with stories about the incidents unfolding in Ferguson, Missouri.
When the whole entire world is standing up for justice of Michael Brown, talking about racism, trying to tell everybody that the Black people are supposed to have the same right as the white people, they forgot to deal with this issue properly.
All I can see on twitter, facebook, instagram or traditional media, the status updates have expressed anger and grief about yet another extrajudicial killing of an unarmed Black boy. The news articles told the story about the militarised police altercations with community members, with horrifying pictures of his dead body on the city concrete, posted by people of colour.
What is even worse, with the hashtags-trend kind of era we are living now, #Blacklivesmatter takes trends on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. With the hashtag that been used widely on social networks, indirectly the users are telling the whole world “who actually does matter rather than who doesn’t”.
They are those who stood up for justice for those who have been victimised. This is the reason why emotions are run high.
In this situation, people should be aware of the need of getting back to the right path, which is ISLAM. Allah has stated in Al- Quran:
““O Mankind, We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other. Verily the most honored of you in the sight of God is he who is the most righteous of you” (Quran 49:13).”
In this ayat, there are few things that need to be understood:
- First of all, this ayat is not merely for Muslims but for all mankind. While the Muslims are one brotherhood, this is part of a larger brotherhood of humanity.
- Second, an individual who is (higher in taqwa), more conscious of his Creator and is staying away from the bad and doing the good is better, regardless of which nation, country or caste he or she comes from. Individual piety is the only thing that makes a person better and greater than the other.
- Taqwa is not measured by human beings. Indeed God is the One Who knows and is aware of everything, so we should leave this criterion to God to decide instead of leaving to human beings to judge each other.
Hence, Islam rejects certain individuals or nations being favoured because of their wealth, power, or race. God created human beings as equals who are to be distinguished from each other only on the basis of their faith and piety.
Prophet Muhammad said: “O people! Your God is one and your forefather (Adam) is one. An Arab is not better than a non-Arab and a non-Arab is not better than an Arab, and a red (i.e. white tinged with red) person is not better than a black person and a black person is not better than a red person,except in piety.“
Photo taken from Addicting Info