Pride

Islam is a religion of equality, of balance and justice.

We are all well aware of certain sayings of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ regarding pride and how it will prevent us from entering Jannah - Allah protect us. We oppress when we should uplift and then we still don't really see ourselves as oppressors. Racism is a "natural" thing because most of us have pride which makes us believe we are different, we are better, we are superior. Yet we will deny this. 

Many people question "how can there be a God when there is so much suffering" or they question the mercy of Almighty God. The answer lies in our hands since the Almighty Allah has given us the tools to balance the scales in this world. Our failure or rather our lack of intent and effort to balance the scales will indeed impact our scales on the Day of Recompense - May Allah protect us.

But in South Africa our problem is racism. We have been trained well by our colonial masters that we have the "solutions" but we take little or no time to understand the problems, concerns and plight of the downtrodden and lesser-fortunate. So when these people don't conform to our ideals we call them every bad name under the sun and we despise them. We look at the rest of Africa and we say that Africans cannot rule, Africans are corrupt but we look no further to understanding the real facts of plunder and rape of the natural resources of this continent. So, we look down on others - it's called pride. Pride is something that will prevent us from smelling the fragrance of paradise.

We look at crime and we think "black". We look at "corruption" and we think "black" because we have failed in our responsibility to be just. We see vandalism and we think the worst of these people and yet we forget the shortcomings in our own communities that are not living in poverty and squalor.  Are we not a community who are wasteful in much that we do even the water we use for ablution? Do we not litter while cleanliness is an important part of our faith? We have not lived up to the ideals of Islam yet we look down at others and their actions while they don't have Islam.
Those who have gone into these downtrodden communities and have taken to them Islam and with it a means of surviving have raised their levels of self-esteem and a sense of belonging. 

We are all at different levels in our lives but what we have of this world is not a means to set us apart but rather a means to share and care. Our concern must be that we have not adopted a sense of "I am better than him ..." which are the words of Iblees as related in Quran. Many will scoff with words like "but they are ....." or "no, I am not a racist, but .... " but we need to do some serious introspection lest our racism is exposed on that Great Day for racism is pride and pride is a most serious shortcoming.

It is better to be concerned that one is a racist and work against being a racist imploring Allah Almighty to cleanse our hearts than to believe one is not a racist while racism is deeply rooted in one's heart. We pray Allah cleanse us and that he protects our thoughts and tongues from any form of racism.

PS! Neither call someone a "kafir" nor a "kaffir" - it's not appropriate.