“....It is a well-known fact that Islam is not hereditary, and it has nothing to do with ancestry let alone race, Islam is a religion, a message from Allah, the Glorious to the mankind, who sent down the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) to convey the message which entailed calling them to believe that there is no deity worthy of worship but Allah (SWT) and Muhammad is his messenger, and also to adhere to the conditions and virtues of this testimony in terms of monotheism and devotion physically, spiritually and verbally. This message is from Allah, thus has nothing to do with inheritance.
“Yes, I agree that we were mostly born in the fold of Islam, this is a gift, a divine gift and we are thankful to Allah for this. But this does not mean that a person become a titular Muslim. You have to understand the cardinal messages of Islam and what it means to be a Muslim. If you think you are merely a Muslim because you were born in its fold or you grew up in a predominantly Muslim community, therefore you are not willing to serve Islam, then, you have strayed from the path of the religion.
“It is incumbent on us, even if we happened to be born in Islam and grew up practicing the religion, to understand that Islam is a religion that requires both inner and verbal testimony as well as practicing its injunctions. You need to bear in mind that there is no deity worthy of worship but Allah (SWT), He has no partner, and every Muslim needs to bear in mind also that it was Allah who sent down Muhammad as a prophet to mankind.
“Before the arrival of Muhammad, the Almighty Allah had sent forth many prophets in sequence to various nations but Allah has made Muhammad the last prophet and his prophethood is universal, not peculiar to any nation, race or ethnic groups. All the previous prophets were sent to give glad-tidings to whoever followed the path of righteousness and warn of perdition for those strayed from the right path. Unlike the prophet Muhammad, their prophethoods were all restricted to particular nations or races. It is even proven that certain prophets were contemporary though everyone was confined to his people. During the lifetime of Prophet Abraham, there existed Prophet Luth who was specifically sent to preach against homosexuality. He (the prophet) had no ancestral affinity with the gay society; he was merely sent on an errand with a message to that deviant nation. So it was quite common for two or more prophets to coexist at a time. So, at last, this Prophet was sent to be the last prophet with universal messages till the end of time. His messages reached us here many centuries ago and it is our seeming familiarity with the religion that makes many of us assume as though we have inherited it....”
_— Sheikh Ibraheem Yaqoub Zakzaky, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria before thousands of audience in Shinkafi, Zamfara State, Federal Republic of Nigeria on Saturday, Shawwal, 1436 (8th August, 2015)._
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