The seventh-century example of Islam’s prophet Muhammad has “literally the medicine to help cure America for some of its issues today,” particularly racism, Rice University sociologist Craig Considine stated during a December 5, 2020, webinar. He spoke during his still-ongoing virtual tour for his debunked, new book, The Humanity of Muhammad: A Christian View, in which he has absurdly drawn Muhammad as an antiracist social justice warrior.
Considine is a jihad-appeasing, former sports management student, whose confused interfaith views on Islam Muslims themselves have condemned. As previously examined, in his book and elsewhere he has sophistically spun Muhammad’s subjugation of the Arabian Peninsula’s non-Muslims into a fairy tale of creating a “civic nation” such as the United States. While relying upon fraudulent historical documents rejected by serious scholars, Considine has imagined a “fantasy Islam” that was a cosmopolitan faith in Europe and elsewhere.
A central element in Considine’s poorly documented case for Muhammad as a civil rights leader is an obscure reference in Islamic canons to his last or Farewell Sermon before his 632 death. In this sermon rendering he proclaims that only Muslim piety and practice (taqwa), not black or white skin color, matter among his various followers in the new Muslim community or ummah. Considine has likewise inaccurately hyped Muhammad’s Constitution of Medina, effectively a tribal alliance among Muslims and non-Muslims dominated by Muhammad.
Despite repressive Islamic doctrine concerning non-Muslim dhimmis, Considine has distorted Muhammad’s biography to claim that he had an egalitarian “identity with all of humanity.” He had “this idea that all human beings are creatures, sons and daughters of God, and that God made us all in his image, and that we are fundamentally equal.” Muhammad’s message was that “human beings are human beings first and foremost.”
Considine has actually even suggested that Muhammad was history’s first “anti-racist,” something that was a “fundamental component of his vision for the ummah, for his nation.” “He is energetically engaging in the dismantling of racial superiority in the early days of the ummah,” Considine has added, and was “trying to overthrow the tribal system to make society racially equal.” This envisaged progressivism validates for Considine Muhammad’s prophetic status, for “these ideas are coming from God; there is no question in my mind about that.”
Without the slightest evidence, Considine has even wondered whether Muhammad inspired America’s civil rights icon, Martin Luther King, and his August 28, 1963, “I Have a Dream” speech on Washington, DC’s mall. His speech said the “same thing” as Muhammad’s Farewell Sermon, which “almost identically mirrors” King’s words. He also appeared “literally almost like he is holding up a mirror to the Constitution of Medina.”
Muhammad’s precedent correspondingly appears to Considine with his leftist pieties as the antidote for modern American ills. While President Donald Trump has been “playing the white supremacy card,” the radical Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has confronted society’s “structural injustices” of racism. Around the world “racism is perhaps the biggest issue, especially in this country.”
As with all of Considine’s wild-eyed hagiography about Muhammad and his Islamic legacy, Considine’s projection of a modern BLM ethos onto Muhammad is nonsense. While Considine has anachronistically claimed that “racism was rife” in Muhammad’s era, in reality this scourge has relatively modern origins in medieval Europe. Meanwhile his ummah merely united Arabia’s fractious tribes and others into a new “Super Tribe” defined by faith in him.
The Muslim ummah thereby transformed Arabian tribal dynamics, with all of their in-group/out-group harshness, into a global, imperial phenomenon. Islamic taqwa is thus hardly what King had in mind when judging people “by the content of their character” according to universal moral principles. Particularly disturbing is Islam’s long brutal history of slavery, as discussed by Considine’s Islam apologist colleague, Georgetown University professor and Muslim convert Jonathan Brown.
“Admittedly, I need to be more critical,” Consdine has conceded concerning Islamic slavery, but he nonetheless tries to present Muhammad as an emancipator. “Muhammad might buy slaves, but to free them,” he has argued, as with his favorite example of Bilal, a Black Muslim who became Islam’s first muezzin after Muhammad purchased Bilal’s freedom. Considine has thus asked about Muhammad:
Do we want to go into the doom and gloom and maybe problematize things and try to spin this, to make him someone who advocated for slavery, or should we go with the sources that we really know about, which is basically him being anti-slavery.
Such justifications for Muhammad’s faith ignore that slavery in Islam was religion-, and not race-based, as in the transatlantic slave trade. As Brown has stated, enslavement of non-Muslims and any subsequent emancipation served to encourage them to become Muslim, similar to the burdens imposed upon dhimmis. Contrary to Bilal’s example, Muslims opposed freeing slaves if they would return to unbelief in Islam.
The centuries-long Muslim slave trade in Africa, which some estimate victimized 17 million black Africans, more than the 12 million in the transatlantic trade, has also had racial implications for Islam. Considine has claimed that for most Muslims “racial equality is a big part of the faith.” Yet the equation of black with slave throughout Islamic history has helped incite racism among Arabs.
Considine has also at times qualified his absurd claim that Muhammad was history’s first antiracist. He has offered other examples of historical figures supporting human equality, such as the ancient Babylonian emperor Hammurabi, whose famed code ruled a diverse empire with legal standards advanced for their day. He has conceded that “you could potentially argue that” Jesus was “antiracist,” something that should be clear from his parable of the Good Samaritan, who helps a wounded Jew despite Jewish-Samaritan hostility. Yet Considine believes antiracism in Muhammad’s life is “much better documented than with Jesus’ life,” despite racist statements attributed to Muhammad.
Considine could also have examined for antiracist messages the Jewish scriptures that the Jew Jesus studied. As various rabbis have noted, the “most fundamental teachings of Judaism clearly dismiss racism altogether.” The “Torah’s great principle is that every human being is created in the image of God,” the “B’tselem Elohim” announced in Genesis 1:26-27. Thus “racism is absolutely against Jewish law.”
The late Jewish sage Rabbi Jonathan Sacks also noted how in Numbers 12 Aaron and Miriam scorned their brother Moses because he married a dark-skinned Cushite woman. Responding to “one of the first recorded instances of colour prejudice,” God curses Miriam with leprosy. In a punishment symbolically fitting the crime, her skin turns white.
The Bible’s basic message of human equality makes mockery of Considine’s claim that a Christian clergyman such as King needed Muhammad’s inspiration to fight racism. King’s famed April 16, 1963, discourse on civil disobedience in the Letter from a Birmingham Jail, for example, is steeped in Christian doctrine and references. Simultaneously therein he worried about African-Americans having “absolutely repudiated Christianity” and joined “Elijah Muhammad’s Muslim movement” in the face of church passivity towards Jim Crow segregation.
Professor Considine’s Muhammad is a 21st-century pop idol no more authentic than the Che Guevara who has adorned the t-shirts and posters of youth across the Western world since his death in 1967. This Argentinian henchman of catastrophic Communist revolution in Fidel Castro’s Cuba and beyond has an undeserved aura as a youthful idealist, but in reality was a sadistic, racist, murderous thug. Facing contemporary problems, the United States should continue to rely upon America’s own prodigious spiritual and intellectual resources that have served so well in past crises, and not imaginary, false foreign prophets.
Buraq says
Self-absorbed and in love with himself. And clearly able to make a living by fooling some of the people all of the time. If, like Karen Armstrong and Considine, you can scale your income according to the size of your gullible audience, occasionally talk nonsense to a camera or in interviews, scribble notes for your next skewed publication, while all the time not really believing a syllable of what you say, ………. well, there’s a living to be made.
But to do that, you have to dump any sense of morality and ignore the cries of the victims of Islam’s ideology spread across the world. That’s what is so distasteful about this clown!
tim gallagher says
Very well said, Buraq. I can’t believe that bullshitters like Considine or Armstrong actually believe that what they are spewing out is the truth. They must have zero integrity and, as you say, they ignore the cries of all the endless victims of stinking, evil Islam. It is a truly disgusting way for anyone to make an income. I suspect, as you say, it is a gigantic ego trip (very much in love with himself) for this guy Considine and he loves getting the attention and being a bit of a celebrity.
gravenimage says
Good posts, Buraq and Tim.
tim gallagher says
Thanks for the comment, gravenimage. To my mind, sincerity is everything. If a person truly doesn’t have a clue about islam’s nature and spouts a load of rubbish, then it’s not good, but it is forgivable. But I think people like Considine and Armstrong must know quite a bit about islam (it’s their job to the research and find out the truth) so they are appalling people because, as Buraq says, they are lying about Islam’s evil nature and stomping on all those victims of islam’s murderous actions. There’s no excuse for people like that.
gravenimage says
I agree, Tim–most of us were clueless about Islam at one time, and some still are–although it gets harder to ignore the horrors of Islam all the time.
But those like Armstrong and Considine have studied Islam and its vicious history and *must* know–and tney still whitewash this evil. I agree–no excuse for them.
Alfredo says
The willful blindness of these “intellectuals” would be nauseating if it were not so laughable. To consider that incurable racist (“the prophet”) as a “cure” for racism, one of the New Left buzzwords, is yet another example of how “intellectuals” have mislead too many to the breathtaking idiocy afflicting the wokeratti. Their religion. Wokeism.
After all, it was this same 7th century caravan raider the same one who referred to Ethiopians as “racine heads”
gravenimage says
Yes–he called them “raisin heads”.
Dude says
Hah. NONISLAMOPHOBIA has been the most diabolical racism known to man for fourteen centuries.
Anyone, anything that is not islam is cursed to be beheaded, raped, robbed, enslaved, demolished.
It is without doubt the most monstrous cult that has ever existed. And the bandit gangs continue to justify their criminality by hiding behind the twisted plagiarism of the dull-witted desert thugs.
spiro says
Islam is racism
Islam is slavery
Islam is anti christ
And will lose in the end
Valkyrie Ziege says
; Bronze-age superstitions written by itinerant, schizophrenic, camel-drivers, and shepherds, isn’t the answer to anything.
Michael Copeland says
Islam “offers no answers to the questions of modern life”.
— Hamed Abdel-Samad, Germany
son of Egyptian imam
Plant powered PITA says
Now do ‘religiously sanctioned slavery’…..
Rarely says
A leading entry for the next Monty Python movie.
Where do these guys come from???
Templer says
Islam is the most santic cult o earth its racest behide belvef it kills chirstains Jews hidues for nothing more than not being a Muslim and they cry racseim in any country there the minortey this evil. Ult wants wipeing from the face off the earth it does nothing g for humanitey and cannot create only destroys like santin it only desrys cannot create pedophile cult off evil satin love pedos so does Islam satin in santic Richler comes in a form off a goat muslims have sex with goats hence sqtin
Frank says
CC is such a ridiculously easy target-giving endless hours of rib tickling enjoyment from someone who is intensely amusing and absurd, all the time never intending to be anything but absolutely serious.
Seriously though, this is somebody who devalues a PhD.
gravenimage says
He does indeed…
gregbeetham says
He’s continuing the tradition of storytelling that was endemic throughout the region, the best storytellers were highly regarded, even if they were slaves, (they had no other forms of entertainment) and drug use was also rife in the region at the time, it probably helped the creative juices along.
With a little bit of effort Considine could have Muhammad inventing the jet engine and plastic raincoats.
SKA says
Considine thinks Islam makes all humans equally “sons and daughters of Allah?” Does he completely lack any knowledge of Surat al Ikhlas’ “he begets not nor is he begotten,” nor of the doctrine of Shirk disallowing any familial relationship between the Muslim deity and his supposed creatures? What complete and utter ignorance! But still, what a useful idiot for the soldiers of jihad!
gravenimage says
Good point, SKA.
Wellington says
Considine is a parody of himself. This is the only positive I can detect in a most deficient man.
End P says
As expected, I’m shadow-banned on that YouTube site, and on many others run by Islamists. Really disgusting that YouTube allows this. My advice is that wherever you can comment on an article about his book just give a link to the search results at jihadwatch.org/?s=Craig+Considine .
gravenimage says
Craig Considine: Islam’s Muhammad Shall Overcome Racism
…………….
Does it matter that the “Prophet” Muhammed himself was racist, sneered at black people, calling them “raisinheads”, enslaved black people, and traded black slaves Of course not…not to Craig Considine, anyway…
underbed cat says
A bridge to no where nice…..sell it , the ” sharia can end racism” statement to the fools or ignorant but not to people who can read….source documents binded up in English….but of course Islam has the other definition of race….no inclusions for living free, unless they convert or pay resistance is not allowed…so much for tolerance.
Stefan Christoff says
A perverted guy…. A transparent renegade and a traitor of his own Christian civilization and culture. Shane !
Giacomo Latta says
This clown Considine needs to be introduced to Tippu Tip.
gravenimage says
I don’t think the problem is that Considine has never learned about evil and racist Muslims.
OLD GUY says
Rice University Sociologist, why is it that a large number of these university sociologist are spewing some off the wall ideology to our children that is always anti our society and culture? Our universities seem to want to teach Communism, Socialism, and Islam to our children but not the history and culture of Americanism.
These schools are providing a platform for anti American activities to be taught to our children, and in many cases a required course. While American history and culture are elective courses not required of all students. WHY?
Alfredo says
“Ye shall know the trea by its fruit”
That Is the result of allowing Marxists to pervert the curriculum. Now the anti American ideology begins practically in kindergarden and continues all the way to graduate Ivy League schools. In effect in the US the new generations are not being educated but indoctrinated to hate their own country. That explains why too many younger people voted for Bribem.
gravenimage says
Grimly true, Alfredo
James Lincoln says
Craig Considine is one very disturbed narcissistic individual…
E T says
Islamic Thinkers Society: Feb 1
A Muslim is obliged to live by Islam and implement the Sharee’ah were ever he/she is. They must also swear allegiance to none but Allah (SWT – Sallallahu alayhi wa salaam / glory to Him, the Exhalted) His Messenger (SAW) and to the Ameer ul-Mu’mineen (leader of the Muslims). if there is no leader (or Khaleefah) to whom should swear allegiance (like in today’s reality) it becomes mandatory to work collectively with other Muslims in order to eradicate shirk ( disbelief, false deities, non-Islamic law, etc.) and implement the Sharee’ah.
Moreover it is not permissible for a Muslim to live between the disbelievers unless he/ she clearly distinguishes his/ herself from them, maintains his/ her Deen; rejects their customs, ideology and way of life; calls them to Islam; fulfils all his other duties and ritual obligations;
Kareem bin ‘Abdillah (RA-Radha Allahu’ anhu / May Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger Muslim (SAW) said: “I am free from every Muslim that resides between the Mushrikeen (disbelievers).” (Suntan Abee Daawud, Sunan At-Tidmidhi, Fath-al-Baari and others).
This ‘disassociation ‘ of the Prophet ( SAW- Sallallahu alayhi wa salaam / May God’s prayers and peace be with you. Allah and his angels send blessings upon the Prophet.) is from Muslims who live between the Kuffaar and do not distinguish themselves from the disbelievers by fulfilling the obligations of inviting them to Islam (openly in public). distinguishing oneself from the disbelievers can be accomplished in many ways. However, this must be primarily done by holding onto the Islamic values and admiring to the Sharee’ah without any compromise. If a person is unable to hold onto his Deen; reject shirk and kufr ( Such as interfaith, multiculturalism, integration, false deities, etc.) disassociate themselves from the disbelievers (such as not voting for them, participating in their political processes or joining their military forces, etc.); openly invite society to Islam; it becomes prohibited for him/ or her to live amongst them, the Hijra ( migration) will consequently become obligatory on them.
E T says
“Both da’wah and jihad are obligations upon Muslims; therefore, we should be like those who are cursed by Almighty Allah (ISWT) and follow some ahkaam ( rules) but reject others. Allah Ta’aalaa says!