The essay starts off with a feud on “real” and “fake” Muslims. According to William Cummings, the real Muslims are Indonesian and everyone else that practices it is fake (pg. 660).  And this would begin the “who’s the real ancestors of this religion” question that is popping up more and more. As in many other storytelling of religion, there is an origin story of the black Muslims sort of similar to the black Jews. Apparently in West Africa was where you could find the first black Muslim.

Drew Ali writes how black people were descended from the Asian race and that their natural religion was Islam (pg. 666). He blamed Africans for being enslaved because they were not as Islamic as their parents and grandparents. I personally do not agree with this. I remember reading somewhere that if the parents did a wrong, then their children would suffer. But that was in the Bible and since we are discussing Islam that would not be the case here. I am also confused on how many religions were the first and ideal religion of a certain race.

This guy Omar or Umar was the first to oppose Islam and did some other wrongdoings. He beat his servant when he found out that she was Islamic. Then during his tyrant, he states that he has to kill the Prophet. Some person tells him that his sister is a Muslim and he hits her. He feels bad and apologizes, then she gives him the Qur’an and he reads it. Omar goes to the Prophet to embrace Islam and it is a happy ending. This story has an okay ending, but Omar does not face any consequences for going around hitting people and saying that he is going to kill the Prophet. Surely that would bring some sort of punishment, but no he gets off scotch free. The only bad thing that happens to him is the feeling of regret for hitting “his own flesh and blood” (pg. 671). This is clearly different than the story o Job from the Bible or any Bible story for that matter.