Reddit reply in r/MuslimAcademics: ibn taymiyyah an example of racism in traditional — September 23, 2025 | Ali Shukri Amin

A very confidently incorrect comment.

You misunderstood my argument then continued to backproject a modern conceptualization of race. I never claimed that discrimination only started with colonialism or that in-group bias did not exist, or even that people with darker complexions were not viewed as inferior.

I claimed that race as we understand it today and as you are representing in these comments did not exist at the time these texts were produced.

Please refer to Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview by Audrey & Brian Smedley or the myriad other options that discuss this at length.

"The Quran condemns racism" only if you think the Quran is condemning a concept which postdates it by 1000 years and is not condemning more broadly discrimination, arrogance, and superiority complexes. Jinn and human are also not races for your purposes.

This hadith about Musnad Ahmad again does not demonstrate race consciousness. That's because the idea of race is much more specific than what the Prophet is referring to here (notably, the modern white race does not include Arabs yet this hadith would categorize Asians, Europeans, and Arabs as "white" further demonstrating the anachronism).

Take a look at the literature around the invention and origin of race as a worldview in the Americas and then go back and re-evaluate what you're saying here.

I do agree people of darker complexion or even other backgrounds were sometimes mistreated in Islamic history, but there is a difference between saying that and claiming racism existed before its invention, which is just not true.