West Coast Connection Forum
DUBCC - Tha Connection => Outbound Connection => Topic started by: TraceOneInfinite Flat Earther 96' on December 26, 2005, 08:14:17 PM
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Al-Ahram Weekly
Hip hop Islam
Hesham Samy Abdel-Alim follows the rise of hip hop as a global phenomenon, paying particular attention to its connection with the concurrent rise of Islam
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Click to view caption
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Let's take a ride through the streets of San Francisco, California where we're talking to one of the world's most critically-acclaimed hip hop artists, rapper Mos Def. While it may come as a surprise to many, Mos Def is not only a hip hop artist, but he is also a devout Muslim. "When did you come into your Islamic knowledge? I noticed in, 'Fear Not of Man,' you opened up with, ' Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahim.' Was that important for the album?" Looking at me directly he says, "I took my shahada four years ago... I had been advised that when you do works that go out to the public -- written works or spoken works -- that you should bless them like that, you know. It makes sense to me. The spiritual level just puts the seal on it. Like I'm making an effort to reach Allah with this. And, Insha' Allah, my efforts will be accepted."
In the early 1970s, long before White American rapper Eminem and Egyptian rap group MTM picked up the mic, hip hop culture began in the streets of Black America in poor, urban neighbourhoods. Hip hop culture -- what was once termed "Black Noise" by scholar Tricia Rose -- has been termed "Global Noise" one decade later by scholar Tony Mitchell. Hip hop culture's presence in countries as diverse as Egypt, Brazil, Japan, Australia, South Africa, Germany, Senegal, Algeria, Mexico, Palestine, France, China, Cuba, Colombia, Lebanon and Norway, for example, demonstrates its rise as a dominant force in global youth culture today.
In a post-9/11 world, what we are witnessing is a massive movement of Muslim artists who are networked around the world through the power of hip hop culture, constructing the notion of a hip hop nation through nation- building practices and ideologies. It is not only Mos Def, but it is also rappers like Beanie Sigel, Freeway, Common, Chuck D, Napoleon of the Outlawz, the Rza, members of The Roots, and many others around the world, who have accepted the Islamic faith. Implicit in the shahada is a commitment to a way of life that is governed, regulated, and mediated by the precepts of Islam, where Muslims are taught to "fear not of man", but to fear Allah alone (as Brooklyn rapper Mos Def makes clear above). Despite the fact that Islam has been a normative practice in African American society for centuries since slavery, the full story of African American Muslim Movements remains untold. In particular, despite journalist Harry Allen's description of Islam as hip hop's "official religion", Islam's dynamic presence and central role in the hip hop nation have been largely unexplored. In this exploratory article, I will be raising a number of issues and questions for further exploration in our on-going attempt to gain an understanding of what I call the "Transglobal hip hop umma " within a borderless Islamic nation. That is, Prophet Mohamed of Arabia did not speak of an "Islamic Iraq" or of a "Muslim Senegal"; he imagined a transglobal Muslim community, an umma where citizenship was based on faith rather than on contemporary nation-state distinctions, or rather, on how colonising cartographers cut up the global landscape.
We can begin with general questions like: How much do we know about the relationship between "hip hop" and "Islam"? Do we even see these two communities as compatible? We can further problematise the notion of "Islamic hip hop" by reconsidering what it means to be an "Islamic artist" more generally. And we can delve deeper into the history of the hip hop cultural movement and ask questions like: Given the fact that Islamic civilisation has been at once transnational and connective, how has this transnational connectivity been manifested within the hip hop cultural movement? Further, given the transglobal nature of the hip hop cultural movement, how has this cultural nation without traditional borders served the purposes of spreading Islamic knowledge, values, teachings, ideas and ideals?
Finally we can ask two related questions, as we did at the "American Popular Culture" conference at the American University in Cairo's American Studies Centre (22-23 May). What do scholars of popular culture and international relations make of the role of Islam and hip hop culture in spreading ideas and ideologies that are critical of US government domestic and foreign policy (see the December issue of Mazikka and other issues for discussions about hip hop's anti-Bush, anti-war commentary)? And what does the US government make of this? One scholar, John Baugh of Stanford University and Washington University, once noted that hip hop music may be America's number one cultural export, making it vulnerable to attack and censorship by government forces, or worse, making it vulnerable to co-optation and manipulation by those same forces. Baugh's suggestion underscores the global power of hip hop culture as a mass-based, mass-produced, and mass-mediated counterhegemonic discourse.
Before we can consider the transglobal hip hop ummah, we need to explore the hidden histories of African American Muslim movements in the hip hop nation. My use of "Islam" in this chapter is broadly conceived, encompassing a spectrum of ideologies and schools of thought. I will focus on the three most dominant forms of Islam in the hip hop nation in the US -- the nation of Islam, the nation of gods and earths (or the five per cent nation of Islam), and the Sunni Muslim community. While there are theological and terminological differences between these communities, all view Islam as a transformative force in the lives of its practitioners, and the data reveal similarities among the views of their adherents. For example, a belief in Allah and the revelation of the Qur'an through Prophet Mohamed of Arabia, is a tenet of all Muslim communities. These similarities are revealed through discussions with hip hop artists about the various creative processes involved in their craft.
HIP HOP TEXTS AND THE QUR'ANIC TEXT: STRUCTURAL AND SYMBOLIC SIMILARITIES
As Mecca remains the metaphoric centre of the global Muslim network, the concepts of the Qur'an and its revelation to Prophet Mohamed remain at the core of Muslim beliefs. Members of the hip hop nation who represent these three African American Muslim movements have independently observed that the very means by which the Qur'an was revealed to the Prophet -- that is, orally and, in large part, through rhymed prose -- exhibits parallels to the linguistic and literary mode of delivery found in hip hop lyrical production. The African American oral tradition has rarely been interpreted in this way, yet Muslim artists have creatively conceptualised links between their mode of production and their Islamic faith. Through dozens of ethnographic interviews with hip hop artists in the US, it became clear to me that Muslim hip hop artists were making new connections between hip hop lyrical production and the method and means by which Allah revealed the Qur'an to the Prophet.
In a conversation with rapper Mos Def, who represents the Sunni Muslim community, he discusses the reasons why he believes hip hop lyrics can be an effective medium in educational practice. In the midst of his animated description, he draws the bridge between hip hop poetics and the Qur'anic text as forms of poetry, each possessing a rhyme scheme and an ability to transmit "vital information" in a relatively short amount of time. His knowledge of the Qur'an and the Arabic language through which it was revealed are evident.
"I mean, do you know how much information -- vital information -- you could get across in three minutes?! You know, and make it so that... I mean, the Qur'an is like that. The reason that people are able to be hafiz [one who memorises the entire Qur'an through constant repetition and study] is because the entire Qur'an rhymes. [Mos Def begins reciting Islamic verses from the Qur'an] ' Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahim. Al-hamdulillahi Rub Al-Alameen.' Like everything... Like, you see what I'm saying? I mean, it's any sura that I could name. ' Qul huwa Allahu Ahad, Allahu As-Samad. Lam yalid wa lam yulad wa lam yakun lahu qufwan ahad.' It's all like that. Like, you don't even notice it. ' Idha jaa nasru Allahi wal fatah. Wa r'ayta an-nas yadkhuluna fi dini Allahi afwaja. Fa sabih bi hamdi rabika wa istaghfirh inahu kana tawaba.' Like, there's a rhyme scheme in all of it. You see what I'm saying? And it holds fast to your memory. And then you start to have a deeper relationship with it on recitation. Like, you know, you learn Surat Al-Ikhlas, right. You learn Al-Fatiha. And you learn it and you recite it. And you learn it and you recite it. Then one day you're reciting it, and you start to understand! You really have a deeper relationship with what you're reciting. ' A'udhu billahi min ash-shaitan al-rajim...' You be like, 'Wow!' You understand what I'm saying? hip hop has the ability to do that -- on a poetic level."
Bay Area rapper JT the Bigga Figga, a registered member of the nation of Islam, also refers to the literary similarities between what young African Americans are doing with language (what I've referred to in my research as hip hop nation language) and the purposeful use of creative language by Allah as a pedagogical tool to reach the hearts and minds of mankind. In a discussion of the relationship between the "language of the streets", and the "language of hip hop", JT draws on his knowledge of the Qur'an and links it to his Bay Area comrade rapper E-40's inventive and metaphorical use of language:
"Like, it's almost like with Allah how he'll describe his prophets as moonlight. He'll describe his word that he speaks in a metaphoric phrasing. Where he'll say the clouds and when they swell up heavy and the water goes back to the earth, distilling back to the earth. The water's heavier than gravity so it distills back to the earth on dry land, producing vegetation and herbs comin up out the ground, you feel me? And results are happening, you feel me? And the disbelievers, how they dry land and the sun's scorching it. He describes the different conditions, you know what I'm saying? And it can be related to nature, you feel me? Nature. And what we see, how we conduct ourselves, can be related to some aspect of nature. And that's kinda like what E-40 does when he takes something and takes a word and apply it, you feel me?"
Whether engaged in conversations about the pedagogical potential of hip hop music, or the inventive and innovative use of language by specific artists within the hip hop nation, these hip hop artists invoke Islamic knowledge to accomplish diverse tasks. In many of my interviews, I heard Islamic knowledge being invoked spontaneously in the flow of conversation (as often occurs in Muslim-Muslim conversations), pointing to the fact that members of the hip hop nation are studying and applying Islam in their everyday lives.
THE AGENTS OF THE TRANSGLOBAL HIP HOP UMMA :
Hip hop music has been an active vehicle for social protest in the US. Its targets have been racism, discrimination, police brutality, miseducation and other social ills. Many of the artists involved in the global manifestations of the hip hop cultural movement resist the multifarious forms of oppression in global societies. When hip hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa launched the Muslim- influenced Zulu Nation in the US in the 1970s, and expanded the movement globally in places like France in the early 1980s, he was networking to help spread socially and politically conscious ideas and ideals, to build a community of people who would actively resist social, political and economic subordination. Exploring what he refers to as the "transglobal Islamic underground", and writing in particular about England's Fun-Da- Mental and France's IAM, Ted Swedenburg writes: "In both countries Muslims are attempting to construct cultural, social and political spaces for themselves as ethnic groups (of sorts), and are massively involved in anti-racist mobilisations against white supremacy. Hip-hop activism has been an important arena for anti- Islamophobic mobilisation for both French and British Muslims."
My research reveals that not only are these artists studying Islam (as demonstrated by their ability to quote and vividly describe Qur'anic passages) and applying it to their everyday lives, but they are also operationalising Islam, that is, acting upon what they have learned in order to help build a nation. Mos Def does not only rap about issues like consciousness and justice, he lives them. His Islamic consciousness moves him and partner Talib Kweli to rescue Nkiru Bookstore, a Black-owned bookstore in his home community of Brooklyn, from shutting down. It guides him to actively participate in the creation of a hip hop album ( Hip Hop for Respect ) dedicated to obtaining justice for police brutality victims and the immoral murder of Amadou Diallo, a Muslim immigrant from Guinea who was murdered by the NYPD in 1999. Mos paraphrases the Qur'an and expresses his faith in Allah at a public rally against the acquittal of the officers who fired 41 shots at the brother: "To people who seek justice, to the Amadou Diallo family, and to everyone who speaks against oppression, I say, FEAR NOT, Allah is the best of judges."
Similarly, Public Enemy front man, Chuck D's Islamic consciousness moved him from giving live performances in concert halls to giving talks about nation- building in the streets, prisons, and schools of Black communities. It is what moved him to become perhaps the most well-known advocate for "cutting out the middle man" in the hip hop record industry by circumventing major record labels and distributors and building independent labels and engaging in e-commerce. JT the Bigga Figga not only realised that he "had a bigger work to do through this music", but he has also helped to revitalise his local communities of Fillmore and Bay's View/ Hunter's Point through speaking engagements and providing business classes to youth. He did not only actively support and attend the Million Man March and Million Family March, and the many Nation of Islam sponsored hip hop summits since 1997, he has also assembled a group of young Blacks, Latinos, and Pacific Islanders into a national cooperative business venture named Black Wall Street (in commemoration of the US government's bombing of Oklahoma's Black Wall Street in 1934), thereby providing networking opportunities and economic growth to those traditionally excluded from such enterprises. I am currently conducting research to uncover more of these Islamic nation-building activities within the hip hop nation. For example, what do we know about NYC's Egyptian female rapper Mutamassik (meaning "tenacious" in Arabic)? What are her personal struggles, and how has she contributed to nation-building activities through and beyond her music?
INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT: What is the relationship between African American Muslim movements in the hip hop cultural movement and the global Islamic world? What kinds of nation-building activities are occurring when Wu-Tang Clan's Rza visits with his Muslim brethren in Egypt, or when The Sunz of Man meet up with IAM in France? What happens when Palestinian rhymer and graffiti artist Masari writes a graff on the San Francisco city walls reading "Liberate Palestine" then spits these lines on the concrete streets of the US to note that "back in Ramallah, my brothers are straight strugglin":
Those gone souls are in my soul
So now my mission's to be plottin
Let the evil rot in...
And our people live forever, cuz souls are not to be forgotten
What are we to make of the many sons and daughters of Muslim immigrants to the US who have been hiphopitised by this African American cultural movement? Will academic centres like AUC's American Studies Centre begin examining the role that hip hop has played in networking Muslims around the globe from Shaolin to Shubra? These are some issues and questions for future research.
Researchers are needed to study the trilingual (Arabic, Hebrew and English) rappers in Palestine as they rail against what they perceive to be the tyranny of the Israeli state, to explore the struggles of Muslim rappers in Algeria as they wage war on what they believe are corrupt regimes (rappers with African American-inspired names like Ole Dirty Shame, MC Ghosto and Killa Dox), and to examine how Muslim artists in South Africa are critiquing what they perceive as the hypocrisy of their nation's "new democracy". How are these groups networked? How are they communicating with each other and the world? How has the Internet helped network Muslim artists and practitioners in the hip hop cultural movement? How are newsgroups such as Yahoo's "Muslims in hip hop" contributing to nation-building activities within the transglobal hip hop umma ?
FINAL THOUGHTS: As the authors of the forthcoming book, Tha Global Cipha: Hiphopography and the Study of Hip Hop Cultural Practice (H Samy Alim, Samir Meghelli and James G Spady) argue, the hip hop cultural movement needs to be examined with a seriousness of purpose and a methodology that considers the networked nature of Islam in order to reveal the hidden aspects of this highly misunderstood transglobal phenomenon. This is a cultural movement whose practitioners represent arguably some of the most cutting-edge conveyers of contemporary Islam. What will this new knowledge mean for Islamic scholars who teach courses on fiqh, Qur'anic exegesis, Islamic civilisation, or Islam and modernity? Will this new knowledge transform our view about the impact of popular culture, particularly hip hop culture, in constructing an Islam appropriate to the needs of contemporary society? Further, will imams revise their pedagogies in efforts to engage Muslim youth who are living in this postmodern hip hop world?
There will undoubtedly be many changes in the way that hip hop culture is studied in the academy within the next five to ten years. Hip hop culture's global impact has helped to transform public opinion (including the academy) of the artform. Only a decade ago, hip hop culture occupied a shunned pariah status in the academy; today universities like Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley, Duke, and the University of Pennsylvania are offering hip hop courses in departments as diverse as Linguistics, Religious Studies, Philosophy and African American Studies. Hip hop culture is being widely recognised as the most recent instantiation of an African American oral tradition that has "gone global", become syncretised with other world cultures and musics (see Egyptian singer Hakim's Tamenni Alaik which combines French and Spanish- language rap with contemporary Egyptian shaabi music) as new manifestations of hip hop form worldwide, and galvanised an entire generation of youth to become more involved in social and political causes.
Many questions remain for what Islamic scholar Jamilla Kareem calls the "American Umma". Will hip hop culture's profound impact on Muslim immigrants to the US, and their sons and daughters, help to reduce the current divide between the African American Muslim communities and immigrant Muslim communities? Will hip hop culture be the vehicle that helps unite the "American Umma"? Or will the transformative, resistive power of hip hop culture be undercut by its widely gained acceptance and co-optation by some of the very institutions it was created to resist? For now, we will continue to document the nation-building activities that are occurring around a world that is more and more tightly networked by these two seemingly contradictory communities -- Islam and the hip hop nation -- or as we've conceived it here, the transglobal hip hop umma.
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LOL ... just wait for CWalker to come in and conclude why there's so much violence in hip hop...
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Religion is the basis for intolerance in the world.
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Religion is the basis for intolerance in the world.
Nah man, ignorance is the basis for intolerance in the world. Anytime someone is taught from an early age that they have a monopoly on the truth and that there is no reason or worth in learning anything outside of what they were raised with, you are laying the groundwork for ignorance and intolerance. I don't have a problem with anyone being religious, but no one can be convinced that they have a monopoly on the truth unless they have explored everything else that is out there.
So in a sense I agree with you that if someone is raised with a particular religion and they never study, learn, or respect anything outside of the close confines of their own religious text, then they are going to be intolerant.
However, a Muslim who behaves in this way is acting against the advice of the Noble Qu'ran, for the Qu'ran commands the reader to seek knowledge, and to reflect upon the life of this world and the creation of nature, and the Qu'ran also challenges the reader to find any contradiction or revelation of equal value. Thus, forcing the reader to challenge his establish beliefs.
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If religion can motivate people to do something positive, I'm all for it, as opposed to the overwhelming negatives, the suffering and death that are the direct result of organized religion.
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I will focus on the three most dominant forms of Islam in the hip hop nation in the US -- the nation of Islam, the nation of gods and earths (or the five per cent nation of Islam), and the Sunni Muslim community.
nice of him to realise this part, its hard to say tho that hip hop is relevant to islam(sunni) or vice versa because theres alot of clashes between the 2, i think it wouldve been more correct for him to link hip hop to five percent 'islam'
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fuck him. fuck religion.
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Religion is the basis for intolerance in the world.
Nah man, ignorance is the basis for intolerance in the world. Anytime someone is taught from an early age that they have a monopoly on the truth and that there is no reason or worth in learning anything outside of what they were raised with, you are laying the groundwork for ignorance and intolerance. I don't have a problem with anyone being religious, but no one can be convinced that they have a monopoly on the truth unless they have explored everything else that is out there.
So in a sense I agree with you that if someone is raised with a particular religion and they never study, learn, or respect anything outside of the close confines of their own religious text, then they are going to be intolerant.
However, a Muslim who behaves in this way is acting against the advice of the Noble Qu'ran, for the Qu'ran commands the reader to seek knowledge, and to reflect upon the life of this world and the creation of nature, and the Qu'ran also challenges the reader to find any contradiction or revelation of equal value. Thus, forcing the reader to challenge his establish beliefs.
fuck him. fuck religion.
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We all know that rappers worship money & fame, not religion.
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We all know that rappers worship money & fame, not religion.
That would better describe the influence of American culture and values in general, but yeah, it would be appropriate to say that hip-hop (in particular, that of the mainstream "bling bling" variety) is an embodiment of this norm.
It's interesting that he doesn't discuss Christian hip-hop at all (and I half-expected him to mention Kanye's "Jesus Walks"), but then again, Christian-influenced rap is pretty much underground only, whereas Islamic influences have been almost dominant in hip-hop since the days of Native Tongues and PE. I'm not all that happy with the NOI influences, tho - the NOI rappers tend to be the ones who make that "kill whitey" shit, which I think reflects poorly on the culture. Then again, rappers these days seem to realize that "whitey" is the one buying the records, so you're not as likely to hear cats quoting the Qur'an or saying "buck tha devil" as you might've heard 15 years ago. But Islam still has a pretty solid following amongst rappers of the hardcore variety (especially the guerillas and many of the gangstas).
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Islam is not a religon, it's a way of life. It is the truth of existence. But none of you would know unless you studied it (as well as other faiths) and researched important things in life.
Man's worst enemy is ignorence. Props on the article...and Salaam.
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Al-Ahram Weekly
Hip hop Islam
Hesham Samy Abdel-Alim follows the rise of hip hop as a global phenomenon, paying particular attention to its connection with the concurrent rise of Islam
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Click to view caption
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let's take a ride through the streets of San Francisco, California where we're talking to one of the world's most critically-acclaimed hip hop artists, rapper Mos Def. While it may come as a surprise to many, Mos Def is not only a hip hop artist, but he is also a devout Muslim. "When did you come into your Islamic knowledge? I noticed in, 'Fear Not of Man,' you opened up with, ' Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahim.' Was that important for the album?" Looking at me directly he says, "I took my shahada four years ago... I had been advised that when you do works that go out to the public -- written works or spoken works -- that you should bless them like that, you know. It makes sense to me. The spiritual level just puts the seal on it. Like I'm making an effort to reach Allah with this. And, Insha' Allah, my efforts will be accepted."
In the early 1970s, long before White American rapper Eminem and Egyptian rap group MTM picked up the mic, hip hop culture began in the streets of Black America in poor, urban neighbourhoods. Hip hop culture -- what was once termed "Black Noise" by scholar Tricia Rose -- has been termed "Global Noise" one decade later by scholar Tony Mitchell. Hip hop culture's presence in countries as diverse as Egypt, Brazil, Japan, Australia, South Africa, Germany, Senegal, Algeria, Mexico, Palestine, France, China, Cuba, Colombia, Lebanon and Norway, for example, demonstrates its rise as a dominant force in global youth culture today.
In a post-9/11 world, what we are witnessing is a massive movement of Muslim artists who are networked around the world through the power of hip hop culture, constructing the notion of a hip hop nation through nation- building practices and ideologies. It is not only Mos Def, but it is also rappers like Beanie Sigel, Freeway, Common, Chuck D, Napoleon of the Outlawz, the Rza, members of The Roots, and many others around the world, who have accepted the Islamic faith. Implicit in the shahada is a commitment to a way of life that is governed, regulated, and mediated by the precepts of Islam, where Muslims are taught to "fear not of man", but to fear Allah alone (as Brooklyn rapper Mos Def makes clear above). Despite the fact that Islam has been a normative practice in African American society for centuries since slavery, the full story of African American Muslim Movements remains untold. In particular, despite journalist Harry Allen's description of Islam as hip hop's "official religion", Islam's dynamic presence and central role in the hip hop nation have been largely unexplored. In this exploratory article, I will be raising a number of issues and questions for further exploration in our on-going attempt to gain an understanding of what I call the "Transglobal hip hop umma " within a borderless Islamic nation. That is, Prophet Mohamed of Arabia did not speak of an "Islamic Iraq" or of a "Muslim Senegal"; he imagined a transglobal Muslim community, an umma where citizenship was based on faith rather than on contemporary nation-state distinctions, or rather, on how colonising cartographers cut up the global landscape.
We can begin with general questions like: How much do we know about the relationship between "hip hop" and "Islam"? Do we even see these two communities as compatible? We can further problematise the notion of "Islamic hip hop" by reconsidering what it means to be an "Islamic artist" more generally. And we can delve deeper into the history of the hip hop cultural movement and ask questions like: Given the fact that Islamic civilisation has been at once transnational and connective, how has this transnational connectivity been manifested within the hip hop cultural movement? Further, given the transglobal nature of the hip hop cultural movement, how has this cultural nation without traditional borders served the purposes of spreading Islamic knowledge, values, teachings, ideas and ideals?
Finally we can ask two related questions, as we did at the "American Popular Culture" conference at the American University in Cairo's American Studies Centre (22-23 May). What do scholars of popular culture and international relations make of the role of Islam and hip hop culture in spreading ideas and ideologies that are critical of US government domestic and foreign policy (see the December issue of Mazikka and other issues for discussions about hip hop's anti-Bush, anti-war commentary)? And what does the US government make of this? One scholar, John Baugh of Stanford University and Washington University, once noted that hip hop music may be America's number one cultural export, making it vulnerable to attack and censorship by government forces, or worse, making it vulnerable to co-optation and manipulation by those same forces. Baugh's suggestion underscores the global power of hip hop culture as a mass-based, mass-produced, and mass-mediated counterhegemonic discourse.
Before we can consider the transglobal hip hop ummah, we need to explore the hidden histories of African American Muslim movements in the hip hop nation. My use of "Islam" in this chapter is broadly conceived, encompassing a spectrum of ideologies and schools of thought. I will focus on the three most dominant forms of Islam in the hip hop nation in the US -- the nation of Islam, the nation of gods and earths (or the five per cent nation of Islam), and the Sunni Muslim community. While there are theological and terminological differences between these communities, all view Islam as a transformative force in the lives of its practitioners, and the data reveal similarities among the views of their adherents. For example, a belief in Allah and the revelation of the Qur'an through Prophet Mohamed of Arabia, is a tenet of all Muslim communities. These similarities are revealed through discussions with hip hop artists about the various creative processes involved in their craft.
HIP HOP TEXTS AND THE QUR'ANIC TEXT: STRUCTURAL AND SYMBOLIC SIMILARITIES
As Mecca remains the metaphoric centre of the global Muslim network, the concepts of the Qur'an and its revelation to Prophet Mohamed remain at the core of Muslim beliefs. Members of the hip hop nation who represent these three African American Muslim movements have independently observed that the very means by which the Qur'an was revealed to the Prophet -- that is, orally and, in large part, through rhymed prose -- exhibits parallels to the linguistic and literary mode of delivery found in hip hop lyrical production. The African American oral tradition has rarely been interpreted in this way, yet Muslim artists have creatively conceptualised links between their mode of production and their Islamic faith. Through dozens of ethnographic interviews with hip hop artists in the US, it became clear to me that Muslim hip hop artists were making new connections between hip hop lyrical production and the method and means by which Allah revealed the Qur'an to the Prophet.
In a conversation with rapper Mos Def, who represents the Sunni Muslim community, he discusses the reasons why he believes hip hop lyrics can be an effective medium in educational practice. In the midst of his animated description, he draws the bridge between hip hop poetics and the Qur'anic text as forms of poetry, each possessing a rhyme scheme and an ability to transmit "vital information" in a relatively short amount of time. His knowledge of the Qur'an and the Arabic language through which it was revealed are evident.
"I mean, do you know how much information -- vital information -- you could get across in three minutes?! You know, and make it so that... I mean, the Qur'an is like that. The reason that people are able to be hafiz [one who memorises the entire Qur'an through constant repetition and study] is because the entire Qur'an rhymes. [Mos Def begins reciting Islamic verses from the Qur'an] ' Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahim. Al-hamdulillahi Rub Al-Alameen.' Like everything... Like, you see what I'm saying? I mean, it's any sura that I could name. ' Qul huwa Allahu Ahad, Allahu As-Samad. Lam yalid wa lam yulad wa lam yakun lahu qufwan ahad.' It's all like that. Like, you don't even notice it. ' Idha jaa nasru Allahi wal fatah. Wa r'ayta an-nas yadkhuluna fi dini Allahi afwaja. Fa sabih bi hamdi rabika wa istaghfirh inahu kana tawaba.' Like, there's a rhyme scheme in all of it. You see what I'm saying? And it holds fast to your memory. And then you start to have a deeper relationship with it on recitation. Like, you know, you learn Surat Al-Ikhlas, right. You learn Al-Fatiha. And you learn it and you recite it. And you learn it and you recite it. Then one day you're reciting it, and you start to understand! You really have a deeper relationship with what you're reciting. ' A'udhu billahi min ash-shaitan al-rajim...' You be like, 'Wow!' You understand what I'm saying? hip hop has the ability to do that -- on a poetic level."
Bay Area rapper JT the Bigga Figga, a registered member of the nation of Islam, also refers to the literary similarities between what young African Americans are doing with language (what I've referred to in my research as hip hop nation language) and the purposeful use of creative language by Allah as a pedagogical tool to reach the hearts and minds of mankind. In a discussion of the relationship between the "language of the streets", and the "language of hip hop", JT draws on his knowledge of the Qur'an and links it to his Bay Area comrade rapper E-40's inventive and metaphorical use of language:
"Like, it's almost like with Allah how he'll describe his prophets as moonlight. He'll describe his word that he speaks in a metaphoric phrasing. Where he'll say the clouds and when they swell up heavy and the water goes back to the earth, distilling back to the earth. The water's heavier than gravity so it distills back to the earth on dry land, producing vegetation and herbs comin up out the ground, you feel me? And results are happening, you feel me? And the disbelievers, how they dry land and the sun's scorching it. He describes the different conditions, you know what I'm saying? And it can be related to nature, you feel me? Nature. And what we see, how we conduct ourselves, can be related to some aspect of nature. And that's kinda like what E-40 does when he takes something and takes a word and apply it, you feel me?"
Whether engaged in conversations about the pedagogical potential of hip hop music, or the inventive and innovative use of language by specific artists within the hip hop nation, these hip hop artists invoke Islamic knowledge to accomplish diverse tasks. In many of my interviews, I heard Islamic knowledge being invoked spontaneously in the flow of conversation (as often occurs in Muslim-Muslim conversations), pointing to the fact that members of the hip hop nation are studying and applying Islam in their everyday lives.
THE AGENTS OF THE TRANSGLOBAL HIP HOP UMMA :
Hip hop music has been an active vehicle for social protest in the US. Its targets have been racism, discrimination, police brutality, miseducation and other social ills. Many of the artists involved in the global manifestations of the hip hop cultural movement resist the multifarious forms of oppression in global societies. When hip hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa launched the Muslim- influenced Zulu Nation in the US in the 1970s, and expanded the movement globally in places like France in the early 1980s, he was networking to help spread socially and politically conscious ideas and ideals, to build a community of people who would actively resist social, political and economic subordination. Exploring what he refers to as the "transglobal Islamic underground", and writing in particular about England's Fun-Da- Mental and France's IAM, Ted Swedenburg writes: "In both countries Muslims are attempting to construct cultural, social and political spaces for themselves as ethnic groups (of sorts), and are massively involved in anti-racist mobilisations against white supremacy. Hip-hop activism has been an important arena for anti- Islamophobic mobilisation for both French and British Muslims."
My research reveals that not only are these artists studying Islam (as demonstrated by their ability to quote and vividly describe Qur'anic passages) and applying it to their everyday lives, but they are also operationalising Islam, that is, acting upon what they have learned in order to help build a nation. Mos Def does not only rap about issues like consciousness and justice, he lives them. His Islamic consciousness moves him and partner Talib Kweli to rescue Nkiru Bookstore, a Black-owned bookstore in his home community of Brooklyn, from shutting down. It guides him to actively participate in the creation of a hip hop album ( Hip Hop for Respect ) dedicated to obtaining justice for police brutality victims and the immoral murder of Amadou Diallo, a Muslim immigrant from Guinea who was murdered by the NYPD in 1999. Mos paraphrases the Qur'an and expresses his faith in Allah at a public rally against the acquittal of the officers who fired 41 shots at the brother: "To people who seek justice, to the Amadou Diallo family, and to everyone who speaks against oppression, I say, FEAR NOT, Allah is the best of judges."
Similarly, Public Enemy front man, Chuck D's Islamic consciousness moved him from giving live performances in concert halls to giving talks about nation- building in the streets, prisons, and schools of Black communities. It is what moved him to become perhaps the most well-known advocate for "cutting out the middle man" in the hip hop record industry by circumventing major record labels and distributors and building independent labels and engaging in e-commerce. JT the Bigga Figga not only realised that he "had a bigger work to do through this music", but he has also helped to revitalise his local communities of Fillmore and Bay's View/ Hunter's Point through speaking engagements and providing business classes to youth. He did not only actively support and attend the Million Man March and Million Family March, and the many Nation of Islam sponsored hip hop summits since 1997, he has also assembled a group of young Blacks, Latinos, and Pacific Islanders into a national cooperative business venture named Black Wall Street (in commemoration of the US government's bombing of Oklahoma's Black Wall Street in 1934), thereby providing networking opportunities and economic growth to those traditionally excluded from such enterprises. I am currently conducting research to uncover more of these Islamic nation-building activities within the hip hop nation. For example, what do we know about NYC's Egyptian female rapper Mutamassik (meaning "tenacious" in Arabic)? What are her personal struggles, and how has she contributed to nation-building activities through and beyond her music?
INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT: What is the relationship between African American Muslim movements in the hip hop cultural movement and the global Islamic world? What kinds of nation-building activities are occurring when Wu-Tang Clan's Rza visits with his Muslim brethren in Egypt, or when The Sunz of Man meet up with IAM in France? What happens when Palestinian rhymer and graffiti artist Masari writes a graff on the San Francisco city walls reading "Liberate Palestine" then spits these lines on the concrete streets of the US to note that "back in Ramallah, my brothers are straight strugglin":
Those gone souls are in my soul
So now my mission's to be plottin
Let the evil rot in...
And our people live forever, cuz souls are not to be forgotten
What are we to make of the many sons and daughters of Muslim immigrants to the US who have been hiphopitised by this African American cultural movement? Will academic centres like AUC's American Studies Centre begin examining the role that hip hop has played in networking Muslims around the globe from Shaolin to Shubra? These are some issues and questions for future research.
Researchers are needed to study the trilingual (Arabic, Hebrew and English) rappers in Palestine as they rail against what they perceive to be the tyranny of the Israeli state, to explore the struggles of Muslim rappers in Algeria as they wage war on what they believe are corrupt regimes (rappers with African American-inspired names like Ole Dirty Shame, MC Ghosto and Killa Dox), and to examine how Muslim artists in South Africa are critiquing what they perceive as the hypocrisy of their nation's "new democracy". How are these groups networked? How are they communicating with each other and the world? How has the Internet helped network Muslim artists and practitioners in the hip hop cultural movement? How are newsgroups such as Yahoo's "Muslims in hip hop" contributing to nation-building activities within the transglobal hip hop umma ?
FINAL THOUGHTS: As the authors of the forthcoming book, Tha Global Cipha: Hiphopography and the Study of Hip Hop Cultural Practice (H Samy Alim, Samir Meghelli and James G Spady) argue, the hip hop cultural movement needs to be examined with a seriousness of purpose and a methodology that considers the networked nature of Islam in order to reveal the hidden aspects of this highly misunderstood transglobal phenomenon. This is a cultural movement whose practitioners represent arguably some of the most cutting-edge conveyers of contemporary Islam. What will this new knowledge mean for Islamic scholars who teach courses on fiqh, Qur'anic exegesis, Islamic civilisation, or Islam and modernity? Will this new knowledge transform our view about the impact of popular culture, particularly hip hop culture, in constructing an Islam appropriate to the needs of contemporary society? Further, will imams revise their pedagogies in efforts to engage Muslim youth who are living in this postmodern hip hop world?
There will undoubtedly be many changes in the way that hip hop culture is studied in the academy within the next five to ten years. Hip hop culture's global impact has helped to transform public opinion (including the academy) of the artform. Only a decade ago, hip hop culture occupied a shunned pariah status in the academy; today universities like Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley, Duke, and the University of Pennsylvania are offering hip hop courses in departments as diverse as Linguistics, Religious Studies, Philosophy and African American Studies. Hip hop culture is being widely recognised as the most recent instantiation of an African American oral tradition that has "gone global", become syncretised with other world cultures and musics (see Egyptian singer Hakim's Tamenni Alaik which combines French and Spanish- language rap with contemporary Egyptian shaabi music) as new manifestations of hip hop form worldwide, and galvanised an entire generation of youth to become more involved in social and political causes.
Many questions remain for what Islamic scholar Jamilla Kareem calls the "American Umma". Will hip hop culture's profound impact on Muslim immigrants to the US, and their sons and daughters, help to reduce the current divide between the African American Muslim communities and immigrant Muslim communities? Will hip hop culture be the vehicle that helps unite the "American Umma"? Or will the transformative, resistive power of hip hop culture be undercut by its widely gained acceptance and co-optation by some of the very institutions it was created to resist? For now, we will continue to document the nation-building activities that are occurring around a world that is more and more tightly networked by these two seemingly contradictory communities -- Islam and the hip hop nation -- or as we've conceived it here, the transglobal hip hop umma.
Hate it or love it its the truth.
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We all know that rappers worship money & fame, not religion.
That would better describe the influence of American culture and values in general, but yeah, it would be appropriate to say that hip-hop (in particular, that of the mainstream "bling bling" variety) is an embodiment of this norm.
It's interesting that he doesn't discuss Christian hip-hop at all (and I half-expected him to mention Kanye's "Jesus Walks"), but then again, Christian-influenced rap is pretty much underground only, whereas Islamic influences have been almost dominant in hip-hop since the days of Native Tongues and PE. I'm not all that happy with the NOI influences, tho - the NOI rappers tend to be the ones who make that "kill whitey" shit, which I think reflects poorly on the culture. Then again, rappers these days seem to realize that "whitey" is the one buying the records, so you're not as likely to hear cats quoting the Qur'an or saying "buck tha devil" as you might've heard 15 years ago. But Islam still has a pretty solid following amongst rappers of the hardcore variety (especially the guerillas and many of the gangstas).
"But Islam still has a pretty solid following amongst rappers of the hardcore variety (especially the guerillas and many of the gangstas)."
lol...i believe u got it mixed up. Since when were people like Rakim, Mos Def, Common, Nas, Big Daddy Kane, Last Emporer and Talib Kweli considered "hardcore guerillas" or "gangsta"? If anything, Muslim rappers are conscience MC's' with positive content, spreading real Hip Hop for the soul and have more talent than most others. ;)
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"But Islam still has a pretty solid following amongst rappers of the hardcore variety (especially the guerillas and many of the gangstas)."
lol...i believe u got it mixed up. Since when were people like Rakim, Mos Def, Common, Nas, Big Daddy Kane, Last Emporer and Talib Kweli considered "hardcore guerillas" or "gangsta"? If anything, Muslim rappers are conscience MC's' with positive content, spreading real Hip Hop for the soul and have more talent than most others. ;)
But then you've got rappers like Cube, Da Lench Mob, Kam, RBX, etc. who make songs like "Buck Tha Devil" - maybe it would be more accurate to say that the violent guerillas/gangstas are NOI, while the more conscious MCs' like Common and Mos Def are NGE (which I'm pretty sure is the case).
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dumb article, way more christian rappers then muslims rappers
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bible, qu'ran, and any other books considered 'relgious texts' are all very old story books, the sooner u realise this, the better
religion has brought more deaths than it has good
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'OFFICIAL Religion of hip-hop'
hahahahah
Fuckin Comedy
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Religion is the basis for intolerance in the world.
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fuck religion.
I cant lie.sometimes i feel the same way.
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bible, qu'ran, and any other books considered 'relgious texts' are all very old story books, the sooner u realise this, the better
religion has brought more deaths than it has good
I highly doubt you've ever read the Qu'ran. You've probably peeked at the Bible, and due in part to your narrow, abbreviated worldview you've already came to similar conclusions about the Qu'ran without having read it.
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bible, qu'ran, and any other books considered 'relgious texts' are all very old story books, the sooner u realise this, the better
religion has brought more deaths than it has good
I highly doubt you've ever read the Qu'ran. You've probably peeked at the Bible, and due in part to your narrow, abbreviated worldview you've already came to similar conclusions about the Qu'ran without having read it.
why do your people hate freedom?
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bible, qu'ran, and any other books considered 'relgious texts' are all very old story books, the sooner u realise this, the better
religion has brought more deaths than it has good
I highly doubt you've ever read the Qu'ran. You've probably peeked at the Bible, and due in part to your narrow, abbreviated worldview you've already came to similar conclusions about the Qu'ran without having read it.
why do your people hate freedom?
He's white.
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fuck religion.
I cant lie.sometimes i feel the same way.
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bible, qu'ran, and any other books considered 'relgious texts' are all very old story books, the sooner u realise this, the better
religion has brought more deaths than it has good
I highly doubt you've ever read the Qu'ran. You've probably peeked at the Bible, and due in part to your narrow, abbreviated worldview you've already came to similar conclusions about the Qu'ran without having read it.
why do your people hate freedom?
He's white.
not to me
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The only real religion is christian, and that's a fact, the son of god came to save us, he made many miracles and came back from the dead. It's not about a book, or an opinion, this shit is real, jesus existed like i exist and it's an historical fact. Islam is a ignorant religion. they always teach shit that looks inteligent but on the other side they kill themselves and beat their wifes all the time just to clean their honor. i respect mos def because he rap about real shit but i dont approve a violent religion like islam.
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The only real religion is christian, and that's a fact, the son of god came to save us, he made many miracles and came back from the dead. It's not about a book, or an opinion, this shit is real, jesus existed like i exist and it's an historical fact. Islam is a ignorant religion. they always teach shit that looks inteligent but on the other side they kill themselves and beat their wifes all the time just to clean their honor. i respect mos def because he rap about real shit but i dont approve a violent religion like islam.
You have no knowledge of what your talking about. If you could just realize what you are saying...
You said Jesus existed, like you exist, and that's a fact. Muslims believe that Jesus was a man who existed on this Earth. Jesus existed like you exist. Jesus was a man, a human being, he was bound by the laws of the Creator, when he was hungry he ate, when he was tired he slept, and when he was in need, he made prayer and called upon the highest power for help. Jesus is a man, Muhammad is a man, Moses was a man, I am a man, you are a man. Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, and thousands of prophets known and unkown were men who were inspired by God; yet they were still servants of God.
Islam means submission to the highest power, and not associating any man or idol with that worship. Now please try explaining to me what is ignorant about that?
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^ Look at his fuckin picture... you expect him to know anything? The guy looks like he's jacking off looking at a Happy Meal...
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The only real religion is christian, and that's a fact, the son of god came to save us, he made many miracles and came back from the dead. It's not about a book, or an opinion, this shit is real, jesus existed like i exist and it's an historical fact. Islam is a ignorant religion. they always teach shit that looks inteligent but on the other side they kill themselves and beat their wifes all the time just to clean their honor. i respect mos def because he rap about real shit but i dont approve a violent religion like islam.
u really need to go and open a book instead of relying on the news for all ur opinions.
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The only real religion is christian, and that's a fact, the son of god came to save us, he made many miracles and came back from the dead. It's not about a book, or an opinion, this shit is real, jesus existed like i exist and it's an historical fact. Islam is a ignorant religion. they always teach shit that looks inteligent but on the other side they kill themselves and beat their wifes all the time just to clean their honor. i respect mos def because he rap about real shit but i dont approve a violent religion like islam.
wasn't jesus a jew.
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The only real religion is christian, and that's a fact, the son of god came to save us, he made many miracles and came back from the dead. It's not about a book, or an opinion, this shit is real, jesus existed like i exist and it's an historical fact. Islam is a ignorant religion. they always teach shit that looks inteligent but on the other side they kill themselves and beat their wifes all the time just to clean their honor. i respect mos def because he rap about real shit but i dont approve a violent religion like islam.
and how is Islam a violent religion, your ignorant ass forgot about the Crusades ehh?
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The only real religion is christian, and that's a fact, the son of god came to save us, he made many miracles and came back from the dead. It's not about a book, or an opinion, this shit is real, jesus existed like i exist and it's an historical fact. Islam is a ignorant religion. they always teach shit that looks inteligent but on the other side they kill themselves and beat their wifes all the time just to clean their honor. i respect mos def because he rap about real shit but i dont approve a violent religion like islam.
You have no knowledge of what your talking about. If you could just realize what you are saying...
You said Jesus existed, like you exist, and that's a fact. Muslims believe that Jesus was a man who existed on this Earth. Jesus existed like you exist. Jesus was a man, a human being, he was bound by the laws of the Creator, when he was hungry he ate, when he was tired he slept, and when he was in need, he made prayer and called upon the highest power for help. Jesus is a man, Muhammad is a man, Moses was a man, I am a man, you are a man. Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, and thousands of prophets known and unkown were men who were inspired by God; yet they were still servants of God.
Islam means submission to the highest power, and not associating any man or idol with that worship. Now please try explaining to me what is ignorant about that?
of course he's man, that's why it's so extraordinary. A god incarnated in a man
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The only real religion is christian, and that's a fact, the son of god came to save us, he made many miracles and came back from the dead. It's not about a book, or an opinion, this shit is real, jesus existed like i exist and it's an historical fact. Islam is a ignorant religion. they always teach shit that looks inteligent but on the other side they kill themselves and beat their wifes all the time just to clean their honor. i respect mos def because he rap about real shit but i dont approve a violent religion like islam.
and how is Islam a violent religion, your ignorant ass forgot about the Crusades ehh?
i'm talkin about precept and 2005
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^ u idiot :-[
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i'd like to see the historical evidence that jesus existed except for ancient storybook
that goes for the rest of those storybook characters all religious people believe in
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of course he's man, that's why it's so extraordinary. A god incarnated in a man
^^^Now does that even sound logical? God praying to himself? God going to the bathroom?
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The only real religion is christian, and that's a fact, the son of god came to save us, he made many miracles and came back from the dead. It's not about a book, or an opinion, this shit is real, jesus existed like i exist and it's an historical fact. Islam is a ignorant religion. they always teach shit that looks inteligent but on the other side they kill themselves and beat their wifes all the time just to clean their honor. i respect mos def because he rap about real shit but i dont approve a violent religion like islam.
and how is Islam a violent religion, your ignorant ass forgot about the Crusades ehh?
i'm talkin about precept and 2005
LMAO... you're just about as retarded as you look... and that's saying a lot...
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bible, qu'ran, and any other books considered 'relgious texts' are all very old story books, the sooner u realise this, the better
religion has brought more deaths than it has good
I highly doubt you've ever read the Qu'ran. You've probably peeked at the Bible, and due in part to your narrow, abbreviated worldview you've already came to similar conclusions about the Qu'ran without having read it.
well the arabs who commit suicide just to get others killed do know the quran you can trust that. Denying the fact that religion is the cause of a lot of violence is just stupid. It can of course be positive too, but it's not like people who really know their religion well are not gonna be violent, some are, some ain't.
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of course he's man, that's why it's so extraordinary. A god incarnated in a man
^^^Now does that even sound logical? God praying to himself? God going to the bathroom?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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I think ya'll are too hard on religion. Yeah, there's a lot of violence and hatred that results from it, but most of that is caused by ignorant people, not religion itself. It's stupid to judge any religion by the handful of extremists (and they are just a handful, nothing more) who espouse violent, racist, ignorant beliefs and then claim they're just doing the work of the creator. Some people just use their religion as an excuse to do bad shit if they think their higher power would approve. The fact is, religion can (and has) done a lot of good for people - I've known many cats who gave up gangbanging, smoking, alcoholism, and other shit that was ruining their lives and went straight after they converted to Islam or Christianity. And many of them also don't approve of all the violence and ignorance that goes on in their respected communities (well, except for the NOIers). I'm neither a Christian nor a Muslim myself, but I can appreciate the good and the bad.
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bible, qu'ran, and any other books considered 'relgious texts' are all very old story books, the sooner u realise this, the better
religion has brought more deaths than it has good
I highly doubt you've ever read the Qu'ran. You've probably peeked at the Bible, and due in part to your narrow, abbreviated worldview you've already came to similar conclusions about the Qu'ran without having read it.
well the arabs who commit suicide just to get others killed do know the quran you can trust that. Denying the fact that religion is the cause of a lot of violence is just stupid. It can of course be positive too, but it's not like people who really know their religion well are not gonna be violent, some are, some ain't.
I wasn't even speaking about violence. I wasn't even talking about that issue in my reply, the only statement I said was that I doubted that the person making claims about the Qu'ran had actually read the Qu'ran.
As far as violence goes, Islam is not a non-violent religion, and I wouldn't claim that it is. The Qu'ran itself justifies fighting against oppression...
Verse 42:41-42 English translation...
...Indeed if any do help and defend themselves
After wrong done to them,
there is no cause of blame,
The blame is only against those who oppress...
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The only real religion is christian, and that's a fact, the son of god came to save us, he made many miracles and came back from the dead. It's not about a book, or an opinion, this shit is real, jesus existed like i exist and it's an historical fact. Islam is a ignorant religion. they always teach shit that looks inteligent but on the other side they kill themselves and beat their wifes all the time just to clean their honor. i respect mos def because he rap about real shit but i dont approve a violent religion like islam.
lol you a joke man... did you know that constantine or the romans killed every last single christian that was living by the old way that means not believing in that jesus(isa) was the son of god the last 1s were in egypt and they got slaughtered by the romans cuz the romans believe that god must have a son and so the bible was changed how can a human change the words of god and how can it now be the only real religion ask your self that.... and Islam is not violent its a peacefull religion. if your saying islam is a violent religion cuz of those terorist then you must be a laugh 2 cuz terorist are angry they are full of hate and hate and love blinds people it makes people do crazy things.. for an example someone comes to you house and claims you must give half of the house to him and you cant do anything against it what do you do say OK or what??? and another example if someone kills your family or your people and you cant do anything against it what do you do do you say OK or what???
and as for the wifes hitting fuck off man do you really believe every islamic man does that if there is a rotten apple in the tree doesnt mean directly the whole tree is rotten??? and do you really believe there arent christians or so called christians that dont hit the wifes? man you need to think before you take conclusions your like my ex comrad who said that I robbed him cuz he did something behind my back and i robbed him cuz of revenge but I didnt and now I know he did what he did so his got double fucked someone robbed him and I did my thing..
(jesus/isa never said he was a god and he will comeback to make everything clear and he shall be asked by god with our ears open "have you said that you was my son" and he will make clear he didnt and that he isnt. by the way how can christians believe isa/jesus died??? if his son of god. he didnt die.. we muslims dont believe he died but the traitor who betrayed him died cuz a servent of god can not be killed by a trator nor can he be killed by a human)
SO fuck all you whos saying shit about the islam that its bad and that its this cuz you know nothing about it. even most of the muslims dont know everything about it even I dont know everything about it(Im young) but i know enough and there is 5 things to be a muslim that you must do: believe there is 1 god and only 1 god praying 5 times a day giving money the poors the ramadan and last and not a must go just once in your lifetime to the kaäba atleast if you can...
this a lil bit off topic but wanna set things straight like nas said people running their mouth crazy
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You got any proof that the bible was changed to add the part about Jesus saying he was the son of God? Other than a Dan Brown book. If Jesus never said he was the son of God then why didn't the Jews accept him? Okay maybe that was added in too. Maybe they did accept him but it was changed to spread anti-semitism. So then why don't more recently found gospel's like the Book of Phillip recite Jesus as denouncing any affiliation to the son of God. If it were so easy to disprove it then no human being with an IQ over 100 would believe. Just leave it at faith. I belive this, you believe that. You can explain why you belive what you belive but to try and proove that one is true while the other is a lie is just plain stupid.
of course he's man, that's why it's so extraordinary. A god incarnated in a man
^^^Now does that even sound logical? God praying to himself? God going to the bathroom?
How about an all knowing being who has the power to do anything wasting his time to create a bunch of idiot human beings for the sole purpose of worshipping him? Does that sound logical? It sounds petty, ridiculous, and conceited. Of course that only if you try and see it logically. There isn't much logic in spirituality if any. If there was then there wouldn't be so many athiests.
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do dinosaurs have souls too?
killed.
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You got any proof that the bible was changed to add the part about Jesus saying he was the son of God? Other than a Dan Brown book. If Jesus never said he was the son of God then why didn't the Jews accept him? Okay maybe that was added in too. Maybe they did accept him but it was changed to spread anti-semitism. So then why don't more recently found gospel's like the Book of Phillip recite Jesus as denouncing any affiliation to the son of God. If it were so easy to disprove it then no human being with an IQ over 100 would believe. Just leave it at faith. I belive this, you believe that. You can explain why you belive what you belive but to try and proove that one is true while the other is a lie is just plain stupid.
of course he's man, that's why it's so extraordinary. A god incarnated in a man
^^^Now does that even sound logical? God praying to himself? God going to the bathroom?
How about an all knowing being who has the power to do anything wasting his time to create a bunch of idiot human beings for the sole purpose of worshipping him? Does that sound logical? It sounds petty, ridiculous, and conceited. Of course that only if you try and see it logically. There isn't much logic in spirituality if any. If there was then there wouldn't be so many athiests.
maybe I dont got any prove.. all of us will see when jesus returns.. maybe not in my life time but that day will come.
and as for the part of the jews most jews just suck ass If I would see them burn I would pick up the popcorn and watch. I dont know there is just something thats so fucked up about them when farao was here they were searching for sympathie they got it then they started troubling all over again when hitler was here they searched for sympathie then they start troubling all over again now they fucking palastin all most makes me wanna kill'm all... afcourse cant say all jews are like that but they just suck...(this is my opinion cuz just cant stand they way they are doing shit. same as the way americans are doing but the hate and slaughter of the muslims has to come sooner or later it was all said and invasion will start on the land of babylon(iraq and iran).
anywayz my point was to the suck ass that said that the only real religion was christian and the bullshit about the islam he was shitting...
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You got any proof that the bible was changed to add the part about Jesus saying he was the son of God? Other than a Dan Brown book. If Jesus never said he was the son of God then why didn't the Jews accept him? Okay maybe that was added in too. Maybe they did accept him but it was changed to spread anti-semitism. So then why don't more recently found gospel's like the Book of Phillip recite Jesus as denouncing any affiliation to the son of God. If it were so easy to disprove it then no human being with an IQ over 100 would believe. Just leave it at faith. I belive this, you believe that. You can explain why you belive what you belive but to try and proove that one is true while the other is a lie is just plain stupid.
of course he's man, that's why it's so extraordinary. A god incarnated in a man
^^^Now does that even sound logical? God praying to himself? God going to the bathroom?
How about an all knowing being who has the power to do anything wasting his time to create a bunch of idiot human beings for the sole purpose of worshipping him? Does that sound logical? It sounds petty, ridiculous, and conceited. Of course that only if you try and see it logically. There isn't much logic in spirituality if any. If there was then there wouldn't be so many athiests.
maybe I dont got any prove.. all of us will see when jesus returns.. maybe not in my life time but that day will come.
and as for the part of the jews most jews just suck ass If I would see them burn I would pick up the popcorn and watch. I dont know there is just something thats so fucked up about them when farao was here they were searching for sympathie they got it then they started troubling all over again when hitler was here they searched for sympathie then they start troubling all over again now they fucking palastin all most makes me wanna kill'm all... afcourse cant say all jews are like that but they just suck...(this is my opinion cuz just cant stand they way they are doing shit. same as the way americans are doing but the hate and slaughter of the muslims has to come sooner or later it was all said and invasion will start on the land of babylon(iraq and iran).
anywayz my point was to the suck ass that said that the only real religion was christian and the bullshit about the islam he was shitting...
im feelin the avi ;D bang, hoodstock gang.
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Religion is the basis for intolerance in the world.
religion is the devil :P
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You got any proof that the bible was changed to add the part about Jesus saying he was the son of God? Other than a Dan Brown book. If Jesus never said he was the son of God then why didn't the Jews accept him? Okay maybe that was added in too. Maybe they did accept him but it was changed to spread anti-semitism. So then why don't more recently found gospel's like the Book of Phillip recite Jesus as denouncing any affiliation to the son of God. If it were so easy to disprove it then no human being with an IQ over 100 would believe. Just leave it at faith. I belive this, you believe that. You can explain why you belive what you belive but to try and proove that one is true while the other is a lie is just plain stupid.
of course he's man, that's why it's so extraordinary. A god incarnated in a man
^^^Now does that even sound logical? God praying to himself? God going to the bathroom?
How about an all knowing being who has the power to do anything wasting his time to create a bunch of idiot human beings for the sole purpose of worshipping him? Does that sound logical? It sounds petty, ridiculous, and conceited. Of course that only if you try and see it logically. There isn't much logic in spirituality if any. If there was then there wouldn't be so many athiests.
maybe I dont got any prove.. all of us will see when jesus returns.. maybe not in my life time but that day will come.
and as for the part of the jews most jews just suck ass If I would see them burn I would pick up the popcorn and watch. I dont know there is just something thats so fucked up about them when farao was here they were searching for sympathie they got it then they started troubling all over again when hitler was here they searched for sympathie then they start troubling all over again now they fucking palastin all most makes me wanna kill'm all... afcourse cant say all jews are like that but they just suck...(this is my opinion cuz just cant stand they way they are doing shit. same as the way americans are doing but the hate and slaughter of the muslims has to come sooner or later it was all said and invasion will start on the land of babylon(iraq and iran).
anywayz my point was to the suck ass that said that the only real religion was christian and the bullshit about the islam he was shitting...
I wasn't asking for an anti-semitic rant. I was just saying that the only legit reason I've heard by any Jewish person when it pertains to not accepting Jesus as the Messiah is that he proclaimed himself to be the son of God and of that being. If he never said that then why would they turn on him?
and 7even; dinosaurs aren't real. It's all part conspiracy put in place by the powers that be to keep the masses occupied while the rich use the poor to get richer. Kind of like religion. Seriously though. I don't know the answers to the universe, and I will never pretend to. I don't know what has a soul and what doesn't, or if souls exist. I believe one thing, but understand it as faith, and I don't disqualify anything. I'm open to everything, I just choose Christianity because it suits me as a person. It doesn't suit you and that's fine but to go out of your way to bash religion is pointless. A dead set athiest is no smarter than religious fanatic.
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u got me wrong man I dont have anything against christians cuz they are following the bible same as I follow the qoran although I believe that the bible was re writin but if im right its not christians fault. I just started bashing just to let the other guy see there are other angles too look at things and for him to stop spitting shit about the islam..
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Of course hiphop chose Islam, Muhammed is straight GANGSTA.
(http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/3082/screenhunter0018nh.jpg)
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Of course hiphop chose Islam, Muhammed is straight GANGSTA.
(http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/3082/screenhunter0018nh.jpg)
wow that was real clever, disrespecting our final prophet of god. ::)