Anonymous - If Adam and Eve were the first people on Earth (assuming they were Arabs or Caucasians), how come there are Africans, Chinese, Indians, Malays, etc.?
Muhammad Rasheed - Why in the world would I assume Adam & Eve were Caucasians when it is physically, scientifically impossible for Caucasians to birth darker races?
Why in the world would I assume Adam & Eve were Arabs, when the Arab nation were the children of Ishmael, who was born aeons later?
Does Eurocentrism ever attempt to make sense? Asking for a friend.
Anonymous - Sorry. Let me be clear, the assumption that Adam and Eve is Caucasian/Arab/others is based on what is said in the Quran/Bible, if I understand correctly. I'm not saying that this is true. I'm just saying that, if these claims were true, how can people of other ethnicity emerge? If two married Caucasians gave birth to an African/black baby today, would you think it's possible, or would you think that the wife is a dirty whore? There are many studies that show that there were humans who lived before Adam and Eve, so, with these evidence, suggests that the holy scriptures are wrong or inaccurate about the creation of mankind (I'm saying this with all respect for all religions, and despite being a Muslim myself, I've been skeptical ever since my teacher couldn't answer this question when I was 9 y/o).
Hence, if the theory of creation in the scriptures does not match scientific findings, it would raise doubts on the whole teachings of religions; in that, they were not words from God, and that they were just an accumulation of knowledge/guidelines compiled by Humans, adjusted to suit their own needs. For example, we know that the Abraham religion all have one root, even in the Quran it was mentioned that the Gospel, Book of Psalms, and Torah precedes the Quran and were revealed to Jesus, David, and Moses respectively, and all these people are recognised in the Quran as Prophets. Now, if this is true, does it not make more sense that religion started from one person/tribe who evolved as per Theory of Evolution and not created from clay, and as time passes and the earlier teachings spread to many, certain powerful people/groups started to ‘change’ the teachings to suit their own personal/political needs? Take ISIS for example, they changed the interpretation of Quran to suit their own political views and needs. If this could happen in the modern world where knowledge is easily accessible and people actually buy into it (ISIS, not Islam), who's to say it didn't happen thousands of years ago? If God exists as per religion, do we really think He would call for His followers to act in such barbaric ways?
Now, let me reiterate, I'm not saying that the scriptures are wrong and God does not exist as I can't prove it, but so far, the evidence I read so far suggests that scientific theories makes more sense, plus no one can prove that God exists, except in the scriptures. It is quite convenient that ‘miracles’, if they actually happened, only happened thousands of years ago with no concrete evidence, but not today when we need it more than ever?
P/S I know this is a sensitive topic, but please let's be civil and have a friendly discussion/debate.
Muhammad Rasheed - Anonymous wrote: Let me be clear, the assumption that Adam and Eve is Caucasian/Arab/others is based on what is said in the Quran/Bible, if I understand correctly.”
Then you do NOT understand correctly, and you are NOT clear.
Being “created from clay” means the same substances that are found within the earth are found within you. As De Grasse said we’re all made of “star stuff.” God didn’t literally fashion you from ‘clay’ like a potter.
The two Semite nations under Abraham were but the last of all those who preached God’s message, a message that is far older than the roughly 6,000 yrs of the time of Abraham to Muhammad (peace be upon the messengers). The last time there was a global cataclysm that matched the description of the biblical flood within the existence of modern homo sapiens, it was 12,800 yrs ago. So the time between Noah (pbuh) and Abraham was approximately 6,800 yrs. The earliest homo sapien fossils found to date are estimated to be 160,000 yrs old, and if we wanted to play stupid and be scientifically irresponsible and proclaim that those remains were THE oldest homo sapiens, then that would make 150,000+ yrs between Adam and Noah, but realistically, homo sapiens are probably far older than even that time frame, since we have no idea how long Adam was hanging around before Eve showed up, and how much time those two were hanging out before the fall. Allah did say that He rose up a prophet among EVERY people, some He told us about, many He did not. As you see there is a ton of interesting data missing from your 9 yr old levels of speculation. I suggest you study more.
Peace.
We can’t even be sure that Eve had the same skin colour as Adam. Added to that, we can’t be sure whether their numerous sons and daughters shared the same skin colour.
Until the flood it’s probable that the colour differences were less extreme and thus seldom referred to. Noahs son Ham appears to have been of a darker complexion than Shem and Japheth, but it is clear that it was of little consequence to the family.
It seems that the extremely different racial features first began to make themselves more apparent only after the flood when the various family groups began to separate from one another and live in more isolated groups after their languages were confused.
But, in answer to this question, the various shades of skin colour were all encoded in the original DNA contained in the cells of Adam and Eve. It was just a matter of time before these differences began to make themselves apparent.
Muhammad Rasheed - Since the Black race has within its genes “the ability to pass on to his children many different types of features and skin colours,” and the Caucasian does not have this ability, then we can absolutely be sure what color Adam’s skin was. He was a Black man.
Paul Coomber - Does it really matter what colour his skin was? We have no way of being sure. What we do know is that at the time of the flood all of the humans in existence were wiped out and only Noah, his three sons, and their four wives survived. What their skin colours were is a little easier to determine when we look at the races that later came from each of their family lines. Still, we cannot be dogmatic about any of this, so why make a fuss of it?
A more important question than the one about Adam’s bodily features is why and how Adam lost God’s approval, and what meaning this has for us today.—Rom. 5:12.
Muhammad Rasheed - You’re asking a member of the race who has been continuously attacked with White Supremacist propaganda to break his spirit in order to make him easier to exploit, if it matters whether everything the White Supremacist has told him for the last 500 years was a lie.
Was that really a question?
Paul Coomber - Are you here to have a discussion? Or are you just looking for a fighter?
If the latter then this discussion is over.
I enjoy discussing these biblical questions, but I have no intention of getting involved in a political debate, which is where these racial discussions generally end up.
Muhammad Rasheed - It sounds like you are implying that it isn’t a discussion unless I agree with you. Or is the 'discussion' you prefer having some kind of semi-formal game to see who can most creatively plug the holes within the extremely problematic Eurocentric explanation of history?
Paul Coomber - Muhammad, this started out as a discussion about Adam and Eve, and nothing else. That is all I am willing to comment on. So let’s just leave it there now.
Muhammad Rasheed - Specifically, this started out as a speculative discussion about Adam & Eve’s race, which of course is a topic pregnant with historical, socio-political baggage and tension. If that baggage and tension is too intense for you to deal with, then perhaps you should withdraw from the discussion, Paul.
Paul Coomber - I will do just that Muhammad.
Muhammad Rasheed - Peace.
William Rundle - Adam & Eve were a mixture of all ethnical groups before any of these groups even existed; they had the DNA within them capable of producing all of them. All people and ethnic groups descended from Adam & Eve.
Muhammad Rasheed - By definition, “a mixture of all ethnical groups” describes the Black race, who are capable of birthing every racial phenotype.
Geoff Cutler - Firstly Adam and Eve were here about 37,000 years ago, and we already had races by that time. On the other hand, the “first parents” arrived about 993,500 years ago. (Yeah that’s the Urantia Book. Maybe it is really accurate, I don’t know, but it has a habit of specifying exact dates like that.)
Muhammad Rasheed - Since the earliest modern human fossils (‘homo sapien idaltu’) is estimated to be 160,000 yrs old, how do you possibly justify a 37,000 years ago date for the patriarch’s family?
Steve James - Adam and Eve would have been proto-racial. They are the father and mother of all, thus all races would trace back to them. Therefore, they would have to be all races or rather, proto-racial.
Muhammad Rasheed - All races trace back to the Black race, therefore the Black race is that very “proto-race” you are describing.
Michael Pfister - Adam and Eve carried the genes for EVERY type of human alive today, plus the types that are now extinct, such as the so-called “Neanderthal” men and some very wide varieties of pygmies and giants that lived in antiquity. That’s a lot of diversity.
It comes about the same way we get dog breeds today from a fairly common ancient dog: natural selection. Add in the fact that humans tend to like other humans that look like them in terms of sexual attraction and we mate with people we have a cultural connection to, and you have a powerful natural selection tool to split out different races. Especially when you factor in the language division at the Tower of Babel, which split people into groups and separated them by a language barrier.
Muhammad Rasheed - Does the notoriously recessive gene Caucasian race “carry the genes for EVERY type of human alive today”? lol Then what does your answer have to do with the baffling and confused assumption that Adam & Eve were Caucasian?
Michael Pfister - My apologies, I thought I was clear: Adam and Eve could not have been Caucasian or Arabs. If they had been, then there would not be Africans, Chinese, Indians, etc. If you make the assumption that they were in fact Caucasian or Arab, then you eliminate the other possibilities. I don’t know what you would call them other than “human”, but they were probably dark skinned and I imagine they more closely resembled someone of Indian or perhaps African descent than Caucasian.
Margarita Mazina - Edit: Arabs are Caucasians.
Caucasoid race includes people in Europe, North Africa, Middle East and South Asia. They share similar skull characteristics differing from other races.
Muhammad Rasheed - 1.) "Arab" is not a race. The Arabs contain all racial groups with the most abundant being the Black race.
2.) The House of Saud has partnered with the Western-European governments to push forward that 'light-skinned euro-look' as the standard of beauty, which gives the illusion that "Arabs are Caucasians." They are NOT.
3.) Abraham's father was a Black man... an aristocrat from a highly-influential Cushite family. The Arab was always predominantly Black/brown-skinned as the tribes reflect today.
4.) It is common knowledge that the human skull is very malleable during the birthing event, and people shape the skull however way they like, often to cultural or even just familial preference. The Eurocentric insistence that the skull shape "of the different races" of the same species means anything, is only a reflection of stubbornness, not a propensity for science.
Margarita Mazina - Caucasoid race is an anthropoloical term, look it up. What people call “Caucasian” in U.S. (with its fucked up Racial Census that has nothing to do with science) is simply European.
I never said Arabs are a “race".
I don't keep track of conspiracy theories, so I am not interested in listening to another one. “Big races” are determined by skull structure, then there are sub-races or ethnicities (depends which classification you look up), that's all what modern anthropology has proven. Ethnicities are hard to determine, as certain genetic clusters canbe shared by different random groups of people in different parts of the world.
Muhammad Rasheed - “Arabs are Caucasians” is definitely a “conspiracy theory” since these predominantly Black people certainly don’t have Caucasus mountains origin. You just don’t keep track of non-Eurocentric conspiracy theories, which receive artificial legitimacy from the systemic racist institutions that birthed the Anthropology fields.
But to each his/her own.
Margarita Mazina - I don't understand what is so “racist” in my statement, honestly. It's not the end of the world that people's skulls look different. Racist would be to presume they are somehow inferior of superior because of their build.
Muhammad Rasheed - Margarita, considering I’ve recently had experiences in which White people who were actually supposed to be actively in the anti-racism fight turn around and become racists — and 100% didn’t see that they were doing it! — I honestly have zero faith that you will EVER understand. But it is all one.
Please return to your regularly scheduled whatever-you-do.
Margarita Mazina - What do you mean by “black"? Arabs are anthropoloically Caucasoid, not Negroid.
Modern Europeans don't live in Caucasus, either, but somehow you don't have a problem with calling them Caucasian.
Obviously, Arabs aren't white (European Caucasians). But it's strange to presume they are black. The only group that is sometimes classified as “black" are aboriginal Australians as their skull structure is similar to Sub-Saharian Africans. Scholars still argue about that.
Muhammad Rasheed - "Arabs are anthropoloically Caucasoid, not Negroid."
Noooo...
"...you don't have a problem with calling them Caucasian..."
You call yourselves "Caucasians," remember? lol I didn't make it up, genius. I actually prefer "wypipo" for you, quiet as it's kept.
"But it's strange to presume they are black."
Noooo...
"...as their skull structure is similar to..."
Their "skull structure" is whatever the hell their people shaped their newborns' heads into. Will you please stop with your bs quackery? What, did you minor in chiropractic, too? Your "education" is garbage, Margarita. Please STOP. jesus...!
*Margarita blocked me from commenting on her posts*
Agha Talal - Firstly I don’t know if you realize this but Arabs, North Africans and even some Indians are technically Caucasians. If you think that Caucasians means white people as opposed to brown or black then you are incorrect. White people along with Arabs, Africans, Indians are considered a sub race of Caucasian. In the west people usually use the word “Caucasian” to refer to white people only but this is technically not true. The notion of classifying white people as a separate race originated in the 17th century. Otherwise phenotypically Arabs, some ethnic groups of white people, Some ethnic groups in India, some ethnic groups in Africa are related to each other and fall withing the same taxon of Caucasian.
Furthermore not all white people are Caucasians either. You will find white Hispanics, white Brazilians and white South Africans.
Secondly considering that Adam was THE FIRST MAN it logically follows that he cannot be classified into any of the races that we classify ourselves. ALL races originated from him, in other words all phenotypes that exist in modern day humans originated from Adam.
If you are referring to skin color then the Islamic texts state that Adam was of reddish complexion. Infact the meaning of the name Adam itself in the semetic languages is
- to be like the Earth; or one who is like the Earth (in his appearance,nature etc.)
- to be red like the Earth
*Edited*
After going through the question a second time I realize that I haven’t actually answered it.
Regarding the human race there are more than one origin stories. The one put forth by evolutionists is that humans evolved from hominids. They reject the existence of Adam and Eve. According to what we know about human genetics it is scientifically impossible for mankind to have originated from a single pair.
On the other hand the Judeo-Christian and Islamic version of the origin story of man is that Eve (may Allah be pleased with her) would give birth to twins, a boy and a girl in a single birthing. The way marriages worked was that the son from the first birth would be paired with the daughter from the second birth, while the son from the second birth would be paired with the daughter from the first birth. By today’s standard this would be considered incest. But that is what we believe happened in the ancient world.
Muhammad Rasheed - So even though humans came out of Africa, this dubious and mysterious “technical” measuring tool you are referencing categorizes them under “Caucasian” now?
lol
This re-purposing of the term is problematic, considering the heavy baggage that particular term holds within both an extremely racially divisive society, and within an extremely racist field of study.
Agha Talal - I have edited my answer. I suggest that you give it a second look and tell me what you think.
I don’t live in the west therefore I cannot relate to the “racial divisiveness” that you are mentioning. Also I am not sure what you mean when you say “extremely racist field of study”. What field of study are you referring to and how is it racist ?
Muhammad Rasheed - So after your edit, I notice that the word “technically” is still being over-emphasized in the same “Look at this hand so you won’t see what the other hand is doing!” kind of way, while still using it to legitimize the bizarre categorizing of Africans under 'Caucasians.' Curious.
So how did your edits alter the implications of my first response again?
Muhammad Rasheed - As an aside, this thread is the very first time I've encountered one of those "But what about the Arab Slave Trade?!? The Arabs enslaved Blacks, too!!" wypipo agents that the Afrocentrics are always going on about. I believed that they existed, of course, I just never engaged with one before. It turns out that coons come in all colors, don't cha know? I'm not going to go so far as to say that the puppet agent of my enemy is worse than my enemy, but I know for sure I don't like these assholes.
Agha Talal - The Caucasian classification is based upon cranial and skeletal morphology not hierarchy and includes people from different parts of the World. African is a geographical classification, the two are as different as apples are to oranges. Not all Africans are black skinned and include races belonging to variety of ethnic groups some of which are white skinned and some of which are brown skinned. Not ALL Africans are Caucasians and not ALL Caucasians are Africans. You are conflating two different criterias.
Muhammad Rasheed - Who made the decision to use the extremely problematic, and baggage ridden ‘Caucasian’ term to describe cranial & skeletal morphology? Considering the African continent has gangs of varying ethnic groups converging upon it from all over — drooling with greed over the abundance of its natural resources — who made the decision to name all of these foreign agents as “African” while categorizing a very specific group of them under the “Caucasian” umbrella? Identify the specific institutional body that is responsible for this, please.
Agha Talal - Well, my purpose for mentioning the difference between Caucasian and African was purely informative. You are the one who steered the conversation towards racism and politics.
If you feel that these classifications are problematic then you are under no obligation to refer to them.
How would you classify the races ?
Muhammad Rasheed - lol The topic is inherently full of racism and politics. Pretending it is otherwise is part of that game.
Tell me who is the body responsible for re-purposing ‘Caucasian’ in this way.
Agha Talal - So are you saying that we should not classify humans into races ?
Muhammad Rasheed - I'm asking you to publicly identify the specific institutional body that is responsible for re-purposing the term ‘Caucasian’ to describe cranial & skeletal morphology of certain specific groups in Africa.
Agha Talal - The term Caucasian was coined by the German historian Christoph Meiners and later used by Johann Blumenbach along with Georges Cuvier to refer to a specific type of Cranial morphology. Initially he used skin color as a criteria for classification but he later abandoned it after he noticed that fair skinned people could acquire a tan and become brown skinned. Therefore they eventually used cranial measurements and skeletal morphology as their criteria.
It was in 1885 that the Caucasian taxon was sub divided into three sub races; Aryans, Semites and Hamites. Hamites included and still includes Afroasiatic people native to North Africa. Hamites also intermarried with other native African tribes of the time and gave rise to ethnic groups such as the Masai, Bantu etc. and so you will find Hamites who are black skinned.
Muhammad Rasheed - Where does the “technical” aspect come in, Agha?
Muhammad Rasheed - As an aside, this thread is the very first time I've encountered one of those "But what about the Arab Slave Trade?!? The Arabs enslaved Blacks, too!!" wypipo agents that the Afrocentrics are always going on about. I believed that they existed, of course, I just never engaged with one before. It turns out that coons come in all colors, don't cha know? I'm not going to go so far as to say that the puppet agent of my enemy is worse than my enemy, but I know for sure I don't like these assholes.
Agha Talal - The Caucasian classification is based upon cranial and skeletal morphology not hierarchy and includes people from different parts of the World. African is a geographical classification, the two are as different as apples are to oranges. Not all Africans are black skinned and include races belonging to variety of ethnic groups some of which are white skinned and some of which are brown skinned. Not ALL Africans are Caucasians and not ALL Caucasians are Africans. You are conflating two different criterias.
Muhammad Rasheed - Who made the decision to use the extremely problematic, and baggage ridden ‘Caucasian’ term to describe cranial & skeletal morphology? Considering the African continent has gangs of varying ethnic groups converging upon it from all over — drooling with greed over the abundance of its natural resources — who made the decision to name all of these foreign agents as “African” while categorizing a very specific group of them under the “Caucasian” umbrella? Identify the specific institutional body that is responsible for this, please.
Agha Talal - Well, my purpose for mentioning the difference between Caucasian and African was purely informative. You are the one who steered the conversation towards racism and politics.
If you feel that these classifications are problematic then you are under no obligation to refer to them.
How would you classify the races ?
Muhammad Rasheed - lol The topic is inherently full of racism and politics. Pretending it is otherwise is part of that game.
Tell me who is the body responsible for re-purposing ‘Caucasian’ in this way.
Agha Talal - So are you saying that we should not classify humans into races ?
Muhammad Rasheed - I'm asking you to publicly identify the specific institutional body that is responsible for re-purposing the term ‘Caucasian’ to describe cranial & skeletal morphology of certain specific groups in Africa.
Agha Talal - The term Caucasian was coined by the German historian Christoph Meiners and later used by Johann Blumenbach along with Georges Cuvier to refer to a specific type of Cranial morphology. Initially he used skin color as a criteria for classification but he later abandoned it after he noticed that fair skinned people could acquire a tan and become brown skinned. Therefore they eventually used cranial measurements and skeletal morphology as their criteria.
It was in 1885 that the Caucasian taxon was sub divided into three sub races; Aryans, Semites and Hamites. Hamites included and still includes Afroasiatic people native to North Africa. Hamites also intermarried with other native African tribes of the time and gave rise to ethnic groups such as the Masai, Bantu etc. and so you will find Hamites who are black skinned.
Muhammad Rasheed - Where does the “technical” aspect come in, Agha?
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