Guest John started the thread with a quotation of the Qur'an. This old myth stemmed from the bronze age, today we think a little bit more modern.
   Nevertheless, if it helps to fight racistic strains, let it stand for the believers. By the way, when discussing the qualifications for the imam = leader of the community in prayer, the early Islamic sect Kharijia decided: Every faithful is qualified, even the "nigger slave" (lowest level on the social ladder). Now imagine this conception e.g. in Little Rock, Ark. at about 1950.
   In my country Germany we had our full lot of nationalism, racism, persecution, and murder over the centuries. So most of us felt the need of reconciliation, and we first succeeded with our hereditary enemy, the French. Today in TV I saw Polish and German catholics hearing memorial mass together in a place where they fought the hardest battle some 80 years before about Upper Silesia. It's time to hope. And when serving my time I never considered the Red Army's soldiers as beastly enemies but as the same poor guys I was: Conscripts in Poor Bloody Infantry.
   For all wanting to put aside religion I may give a secular quotation of the great Mexican president Lic. Benito Juarez:
Entre las naciones como entre los hombres el respeto al derecho ajieno es la paz.
Between nations as between men the respect for the other one's right is peace.
   Nothing to add.

Wilfried