In God's Sight, Superiority Lies in Piety, Not in Race — Social Darwinism and the Favored Races Myth

Reading time: ~2 min read

White students attacking a black lawyer. Racism is a cause of anger, hatred, aggression and conflict. These students have so taken leave of their humanity as to kill an innocent man solely because of the color of his skin. They are living under the influence of Social Darwinism, whether consciously or otherwise. Top: An Alabama passenger bus in 1930. A separate section marked “Colored Passengers” was set aside for blacks.

Such savagery was not limited to the Nazis. Many parts of the world have experienced terrible catastrophes because of racism. Because of it, hundreds of thousands have been regarded as worthless, humiliated, forced from their homes and enslaved, killed or abandoned to die, treated like animals, and used in pharmaceutical experiments. The examples cited in this book are just a few of the many documented instances of savagery and violence.

The social structure envisaged by Darwinism needs to be accurately identified. Like all other materialist theories, Social Darwinism, maintaining that people are selfish creatures who live solely for their own interests, responsible solely to themselves, can never bring proper moral values and happiness to individuals or to society as a whole. In order to acquire proper moral values and happiness, a person needs to abandon selfish desires. Religious moral values, as commanded by our Lord, teach people how this will be. People's responsibility towards God and the kind of moral values they need to attain His approval are revealed in the Qur'an.

If people have faith in God's commandments and the Book revealed by Him, then they will feel compassion and affection towards others.

... Help each other to goodness and heedfulness. Do not help each other to wrongdoing and enmity. Fear God... (Surat al-Ma’ida, 2)

Those who love and fear God and obey His commandments, see other people as beings He created, and make no distinctions between them on grounds of race, nation, skin color or language. In every human being, they see beauty created by God, and take pleasure in that beauty. Their faith makes them loving, compassionate and protective. However, someone brainwashed by Darwinism's falsehoods looks down on other races and nations, feels justified in oppressing and even eradicating them, and spreads nothing but tension, unhappiness and fear. The racism and imperialism witnessed in the 19th and 20th centuries are the result of this Darwinist world view.

In the Qur'an, God has forbidden discrimination on grounds of race and has revealed that people can attain superiority in His sight through faith and their fear of Him:

O humanity! We created you from a male and female, and made you into peoples and tribe so that you might come to know each other. The noblest among you in God's sight is the one with the most fear of God. God is All-Knowing, All-Aware. (Surat al-Hujurat, 13)