Prophet Muhammad and the Black Arabs - Dr. Wesley Muhammad

1. Introduction
Prophet Muhammad and the Black Arabs:
The Witness of Pre-Modern Chinese Sources
By
Wesley Muhammad, PhD © Copyright Wesley Muhammad 2011
China has a remarkable Sinophone Muslim community, the Hui, which is at least 1300
years old and may actually go back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632) who,
according to Chinese Muslim tradition, is supposed to have sent ambassadors to China to teach
Islam [Lipman 1997; EI 2 s.v. al-Sin]. Numbering around nine million today, this Chinese Muslim
community began as Arab (and later Persian and Central Asian) migrants (diplomats, traders,
soldiers) during the T’ang dynasty (618-907) who settled, married local women and, through a
long and gradual process of assimilation and acculturation, became nearly totally sinicized
[Leslie, 1998; idem, 187; Israeli, 1979; Lipman, 1997].
This community of Islam is remarkable on a number of accounts: (1) While Islam arrived
in China around the same time Judaism and Christianity did, these latter along with other nonindigenous
religious traditions like Manichaeism failed to survive the purge of all things
foreign by and during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Islam not only survived this purge, but
prospers, a fact that continues to raises questions for researchers. (2) Chinese Islam survived
and prospers despite its near-total isolation from the centers of Islamic spirituality and learning
in the Middle East [Chuah, 2004]. It was not until the 18 th-19 th centuries that Chinese Muslim
scholars had access to enough Arabic and Persian literature to develop a Muslim apologetic
literature of their own and a Chinese translation of the complete Qur’an did not appear until the
19 th century [Peterson, 2006]. What has sustained Islam in this sometimes hostile environment
for so long?
Despite this geographical and intellectual isolation, but also because of it, Chinese annals
and Hui traditions prove to be an important alternative source of information for a
reconstruction of early Arabian Islam. In particular, the relevant pre-Modern Chinese sources –
Muslim religious literature as well as official dynastic histories – confirm what we learn from
the Western Christian (Crusader) sources and the Late Antique and Medieval Jewish sources:
that the Arabs that erupted out of Arabia in the seventh century and established probably the
greatest empire in the last six thousand years were black-skinned Arabs, descendents of the
African Arabian (Afrabian) inhabitants of ancient Arabia [on which see Muhammad, 2011;
idem, 2009]. These non-Arabic sources - non-Muslim and Muslim - challenge popular
conceptions about Arabs and Islam that are mainly based on late Arabic and Persian Muslim
literature and iconography. On the other hand, these sources agree with an earlier Arabic
tradition wherein Arabs self-identify as black (Muhammad, 2010; Berry, 2002).
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2. Muhammad: Chinese Islam’s Black Prophet
The Hui have a foundation myth that both recounts the origin of Islam in Zhong Guo,
‘the Middle Kingdom (i.e. China),’ and also seeks to provide meaning to Chinese Muslim
existence as both Chinese and Muslim - heirs to a dual legacy of civilizational greatness. This
popular myth, called Huihui yuanlai (‘Origins of the Hui’) circulated in several oral versions
among different Chinese Muslim communities before being committed to writing sometime
during the Ming. It was no doubt revised during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911).
In the Third Year of Zen Guan [Tai Zong] of the Tang Dynasty (r. 629-649), in the
evening of the 18th of the third month, the Emperor in his sleep dreamed that a
turbaned man came running into the palace grounds, chasing after a demon. He woke
up and was puzzled by the dream, for he knew not what it foretold. On the following
day he assembled all the officials of the court to discuss the matter.
The Imperial Astronomer respectfully reported to the Emperor, saying: “In the night, as
I observed the appearance of the heaven, I saw a strange and evil appearance which
impinged on the Tzu wei star, and I feared this might portend trouble for the Empire; I
also saw in the West a felicitous light brightly manifested and encircling the Tzu wei star
as a wall of protection. I opine that in the west there must be a sage who can control the
threatened evil; would it not be well for your Majesty to send a messenger to enquire, in
obedience to the heavenly portents?”
The Emperor then said: “At midnight I dreamed of a turbaned man and a demon which
had a black face, red hair, large and prominent teeth, and was of very evil appearance
generally. The man in the turban, with his hands clasped and murmuring prayers,
pursued the demon closely. To look on, he (the turbaned man) indeed had a strange
countenance, totally unlike ordinary men; his face was the color of black gold, his ear
lobes reached his shoulders, his whiskers stood outward, his moustache and beard were
cut off, short and even; he had phoenix eyebrows, a high nose and black eyes. His
clothes were white and powdered, a jeweled girdle of jade encircled his loins, on his
head was a plain hat, and around it a cloth turban like a coiled dragon. His presence was
awe-inspiring and dreadful to behold, as might be that of a sage descending to the
palace. When he entered he knelt towards the West, reading the book he held in his
hand. When the demons saw him they were at once changed into their proper forms,
and in distressful voices pleaded for forgiveness. But the turbaned man read on for a
little, till the demons turned to blood and at last to dust, and at the sound of a voice the
turbaned man disappeared. Now,” the Emperor continued, “whether this be a good or
an ill omen I’m sure I don’t know.”
Thereupon the diviner of dreams reported: "The turbaned man is a Huihui (i.e. Muslim)
from the Western Region, out beyond the Jiayu Pass. The kingdom of Arabia is ruled by
a Muslim king of great knowledge and virtue. His land is rich and powerful. The demon
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entering the palace grounds surely means that there is evil lurking, which you will only
be able to dispel with the help of a Huihui"…
The general reported: "The Huihui are impeccably honest in their dealings. If you meet
with them peacefully, they will serve you loyally and with no care for reward. You may
send an emissary to the Western Region to see the Muslim king, and request the services
of an enlightened one (zhenren) to keep the portended evil at bay."
The Emperor did as was advised, and sent the senior official Shi Mingtang on a mission
to present a letter to the Muslim king. [He travelled to Mecca and saw the Prophet
Muhammad]. The Muslim king was delighted upon receiving the letter, and sent with
the official his senior disciples (Thabit b. Qays), Uways and (Sa’d b. Abī Waqqās) to
China to offer their services. Muhammad said to the official: “When you return to China
take with you my portrait to give to the king of T’ang, who when he sees it, will
naturally understand (about the dream)…” He then charged the official that when the
portrait was given to the king of T’ang, it was clearly to be told him that no one was to
worship the picture…
The Emperor received them with full honors, and asked what were the ritual and
scriptural differences between his land and China. The turbaned man (Sa’d or Qays)
replied that the revealed scripture of the Western Region was called the Quran, which
could be likened to the Five Classics of China. He then expounded the difference
between Eastern and Western ritual and teachings.
The Emperor was delighted, and so selected 3,000 T’ang soldiers to move to the Western
Region, in exchange for 3,000 Muslim soldiers to accompany the turbaned elder in
China. These 3,000 Muslims had countless descendants, and are the ancestors of the
followers of Islam in China today. [Broomhall, 1966 [1910]: 64-67; Mason, 1929: 46-53;
Lunde, 1985: 12]
The apocryphal nature of this story is fairly obvious to those familiar with Chinese
history and religious literature [Israeli, 2001: 191; Garnaut, 2006; Mason, 1929: 53]. The literary
use of the motif of “the Emperor’s Dream” to justify a faith newly introduced to China also
appears in legendary accounts of the origin of Buddhism in China, according to which emperor
Han Mingi (57-75) in 64 C.E. had a dream of a person from the West identified by an interpreter
as Buddha. The Emperor thus sent envoys to the Indus region to find out all about the new
religion [Israeli, 2001: 192, 204; Broomhall, 1966 (1910): 68; Parker, 1907: 64]. It is also the case
that references to events that occurred much later can be discerned in this story, such as the
eighth century rebellion of An Lushan against the Chinese emperor Xuan Zong (712-756) which
brought, by his request, 3000 Muslim soldiers to China who settled there and whose
descendants became a part of the nucleus of the developing Hui community. This myth is a
‘community biography,’ aimed at legitimizing Arabian Islam within a Chinese cultural and
political environment [Benite, 2004: 85; Israeli, 2002: 62]. Nevertheless, there is undoubtedly a
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‘grain of truth’ underneath all of the apologetic accretions [Hongxun, 1985; Sushalo, 1971: 42-43
(Dyer, 1981-1983: 563); Stratanovich, 1954: 52-66 (Dyer, 1981-1983: 563)].
One quite fascinating piece of this grain of truth is no doubt the remarkable description
of the turbaned Muslim who appears in the Emperor’s dream and who turns out to be the
Prophet Muhammad himself (See Endnote 1). Singularly arresting is the description of his
color: black gold. What could this possibly mean and what is the source of this very eccentric
Chinese description of Islam’s prophet? Black gold, one of several ‘colored golds’ used for
jewelry, is gold with a black oxidide layer resulting from a cobalt component and heat
treatment. As eccentric as such a description may seem vis-à-vis the popular, though late,
Arabic/Persian description found in the more central Muslim lands according to which
Muhammad is ruddy white, this Chinese description actually is curiously consistent with an
earlier Arabic description, a description, we should add, that is more in agreement with the
ethno-cultural context of Jahili and early Islamic Arabia [on which see Reynolds, 1992; Berry,
2002].
The most common description of the Prophet in Arabic sources of the ninth century, the
date of the earliest extant Arabic Islamic literature, is abyad [Muhammad, 2011: 2 n. 9]. This term
usually means ‘white’ in contexts not related to human complexion. In the latter context,
however, by antiphrasis abyad frequently means black [Stewart, 1999: 119; Shivtiel, 1991:336].
But in Classical Arabic there are several distinct ‘blacknessess’ or ‘shades of blackness’ [al-
Asyuti, 1992, II: 574; al-Tha‘labī, 2006: 81-82]. Abyad is a particular shade or ‘type’ of blackness.
According to the important Syrian hadith scholar and historian of Islam, Shāms al-Dīn Abū
`Abd Allāh al-Dhahabī (d. 1348),
When Arabs say, ‘so-and-so is white (abyad),’ they mean a golden brown complexion
with a black appearance (al-hintī al-lawn bi-hilya sudā’). And if they are speaking of the
color of the people of India, they say: more or less dark brown (asmar wa ādam). And
regarding the blackness of the people of Takrur they say aswad, intensely black, and
similarly all those whose complexion is overwhelmingly black are called aswad or shadīd
al-udma.. [al-Dhahabī, 1981, II: 168]
Abyad, the most common descriptor of Muhammad, is, like this black gold, a black
complexion with a golden-brown undertone and it is a complexion free of blemish or dark
patches [al-Asyuti, 1992, II: 574; Ibn Manzur, 1955-1956, IV: 209; al-Zabīdī, 1965, XVIII: 251-253].
Abyad, like the black gold analogy, also suggests a ‘black luminosity,’ viz. a black complexion
that is imbued with a luminosity or glow [Muhammad, 2010a: 23-25]. This is the ideal of beauty
in early Arab society [al-Zabīdī, 1965, XVIII: 251; Ibn Manzur, 1955-1956, VII: 124; Muhammad,
2011: 245; contra Badawī, 1973], and gave rise to the metaphoric use of coal (another ‘black
gold’) to describe Ethiopian blackness. See e.g. the words of the epigrammatist Ascelepiades (fl.
300-270 B.C.E.) who wrote concerning a certain Didyme:
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Gazing at her beauty I melt like wax before fire. If she is black, what is that to me? So are
coals, but when we burn them, they shine like fire [Anth. Pal. 5.210].
This association of ethnic blackness with coals alit is relevant here, not only because ‘black gold’
is a common metaphor for coal, but also because in Arabic coal is euphemistically called abyad
[EI 2 s.v. Lawn]. It should be noted here that in early Arabic society a beautiful, clear and
luminous blackness was distinguished from an ‘ugly’ blackness, blemished by excessiveness
due to scorching [Ibn al-Faqīh al-Hamadānī, 1996: 199; al-Dimashqī, 1923:274]. It is thus
unsurprising that we find in this Hui myth the black gold complexion of the Prophet in implied
contrast to the black and generally evil appearance of the demon.
There is an alternative version of this myth of the Chinese Emperor’s dream that is
relevant also:
One night the Emperor Tai Zong of the Tang dynasty dreamt that a roof beam of his
golden palace was collapsing. The roof beam nearly smashed his head, but it was
intercepted and pushed back by the right hand of a man. The man wore a green robe,
and a white turban was around his head. He had a towel draped over his should and a
water kettle in his left hand. He had deep eye sockets, a high nose bridge, and a brown
face. [Li and Luckert, 1994: 237; Benite, 2004: 83]
While this version of the myth continues in a way similar to the above, our attention is
drawn to the description of the turbaned Muslim, Muhammad: here he is brown complexioned.
This too is consistent with what we find in the Classical Arabic tradition. In two reports on the
authority of the famous Companions Anas b. Mālik and ‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Abbās the Prophet is
described as having a “beautiful brown-complexioned (asmar) body” [See sources in
Muhammad, 2011: 20]. Asmar is a color term denoting a dark brown, short of black [Borg, 1999:
129; Stewart, 1999: 111-112; Vollers, 1910: 88]. Thus, the two descriptions of the Arabian prophet
that feature in the central and most wide-spread myth of Chinese Islam – indeed the defining
myth – precisely correspond to the two descriptions we meet with in the early Arabic literature.
But this general description of Muhammad as a very dark-skinned Arab more or less
completely disappears from the Arabic literature of a later period and is replaced by what will
become the orthodox and popular description of Muhammad: abyad musrab bi-humra, ruddy
white-skinned [see Muhammad 2011:25-28]. Being that the black-skinned Muhammad
completely disappears from the Arabic Islamic tradition and is almost totally forgotten, and that
the ruddy-white Muhammad becomes universally recognized throughout Muslim and non-
Muslim literature and iconography, how is it that Chinese Islam clung to this black Arab
Muhammad for so long?
The Chinese myth is difficult to date, but a printed version of it was probably in
circulation in the late Ming period (ca. 1622), certainly by the early Qing [Leslie, Daye and
Youssef, 2006: 144; Leslie, 1981: 55; Garnaut, 2006; Benite, 2004: 84]. However, as Anthony
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Garnaut reminds us, legends such as this are the material of oral literature, and the earliest
written accounts represent only the endpoint of a long process of oral narrative development
[Garnaut, 2006]. Therefore, though the narrative as we currently find it is apocryphal and its
historical context is late [Ma, 2006], it certainly incorporates ancient Muslim tradition. This Old
Arabic description of Muhammad as a dark-skinned Arab is no doubt a part of the ancient
Muslim tradition that was brought to China early. Because Chinese Islam was, despite some
sporadic intercourse, intellectually isolated from the main centers of Islam, it seems to have
been minimally impacted by the major intellectual, culturally, and demographic shifts that
occurred in the Muslim heartlands following the misnomered ‘Abassid Revolution of the eighth
century. These shifts I have generally called the Aryanizing of Islam, because Persian (Aryan)
converts were the main shapers of Islamic tradition following the Revolution. Newly
introduced into Islam, among other things, was a virulent anti-black, anti-Arab sentiment which
ultimately ‘de-Arabized’ Muhammad by transfiguring him into a ruddy-white Persian
[Muhammad, 2011; idem, 2010]. This Aryanizing process seems to have had minimal impact on
Chinese Islam at the time this myth of the Emperor’s Dream was canonized and popularized.
3. Sa’d b. Abī Waqqās: Chinese Islam’s Black Saint
On the Dingzhou Mosque, the oldest mosque in China located in Dingzhou city, Hebei
Province (in eastern China), there is a stele commemorating the rebuilding of the mosque in
1348 during the Yuan dynasty (1206-1368). The stele mentions briefly: “In the Kaihuang reign
(581-600) of the Sui, our Companion Sa’d Waqqas (Sa Ha Bo Sa Ha Di Wo Ge Si) first brought
the teaching to China.” The is the oldest documented reference to the canonical Hui legend
according to which the maternal uncle of the prophet Muhammad, Sa’d b. Abī Waqqās (d. 664),
the conqueror of Persia and founder of Kufa, came to China on instructions from the Prophet
and introduced Islam there [See Ma, 2006]. There is a tomb built in his honor in Guangzhou in
southeastern China, where Arab and Persian maritime merchants formed communities as far
back as the Tang dynasty (618-907). This account of Chinese Islam’s origin is also found in
official records, such as the Ming dynasty’s official history Ming Shi, which was commenced in
1370 and published in 1461. There it is stated: “Sahib Sa’d Waqqas came to China in the years of
K’ai Huang of the Sui Dynasty (i.e. between 581-600).”
Nevertheless, most scholars reject this claim as completely legendary [e.g. Broomhall,
1966 (1910): 77-79; Mason, 1922: 3; EI 2 s.v. al-Sin; Jun-yan, 1980: 95]. The main reasons, other
than the relatively late documentation, are two: (1) the impossible dates offered in the various
versions of the narrative (e.g. Muhammad sending Islamic ambassadors ten years before he had
his Prophetic call) and (2) the lack of Arabic documentation of a trip by Sa’d to China, coupled
with the standard Muslim tradition that he died in al-Aqīq and was buried in Medina [EI 2 s.v.
Sa’d b. Abī Wakkās]. The latter argument is unpersuasive. The assumption by Western scholars
that Sa’d “never came to China” is baseless. While such an embassy is not mentioned in the
extent Arabic historical sources, these have lacunae as it relates to Sa’d. His activities between
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648 and 653 are unrecorded, and it is precisely during this period (i.e. 650) that this embassy
likely happened (see below), though obviously not on the instruction of Muhammad who had
been dead for several years by then [Pickens, 1942: 203].
Nor is the chronological problem insurmountable. Errors, chronological and otherwise,
as it relates to the rise of Islam are certainly found in the dynastic annals and should not
surprise us [Wakeman, 1990: 409-411, n. 176]. In addition, the date most commonly offered in
the Hui sources for this embassy, 628, is likely wrong on the surface, but it also probably has an
accurate date underneath it. Scholars now know that the conversion of Muslim lunar dates to
the Chinese luni-solar calendar introduced a twenty-one/two year error into the Chinese
retelling of Islamic history. When corrected for this error, the Chinese Muslim date of the
embassy, 628, becomes 649-650 and agrees precisely with the date we get from the official
annals for such an embassy (Leslie, 1998: 11 and below). Hui tradition and Chinese official
records thus agree, suggesting that they “have a foundation in fact” [Pickens, 1942: 208; Drake,
1943: 23; Hongxun, 1985]. Even though the Hui tradition undoubtedly has legendary accretions,
the basic claim that Islam first came to China in the seventh century with an Arab embassy (that
included Sa’d) has nothing militating against it [Lipman, 1997: 25; Leslie, 1998: 3].
According to Hui tradition, Sa’d and another Arab ambassador, Thabit b. al-Qays, are
among the forefathers of the Hui. Their alleged tombs in Guangzhou and Hami, Xinjiang are
holy centers to which distressed Believers travel seeking blessings and praying for protection
[Garnaut, 2006; Hongxun, 1985; Gladney, 1987: 497-500]. These saints of Chinese Islam are black
Arabs. Sa’d b. Abī Waqqās, cousin of the prophet’s mother, Amīna bt. Wahb and uncle of
Muhammad, was from the Banū Zuhra and was thus described as black-skinned (ādam), flatnosed
and tall [al-Dhahabī, 1981, I:97; Berry, 2002:71-72]. Thabit b. al-Qays was chieftain of Banū
Khazraj, a tribe notorious for having black skin [see Muhammad, 2011: 16-17; idem, 2009: 178-
180; Berry, 2002: 68-69]. He was the first of Yathrib to swear allegiance to Muhammad. These
two famous black-skinned Arabs are considered the forefathers of Islam in China and are
among Chinese Islam’s most holy figures, Sa’d certainly the holiest, second only to Muhammad.
4. The Black Arabs in Official Chinese Records
China had contacts with Western Asia as early as the pre-Imperial Period, before the
second century B.C.E. Envoys of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E. – 220 C.E.) with caravan reached
Arabia ca. 206 B.C.E. As late as the fifth century C.E. during the Liu-Sung dynasty (420-479 C.E.)
Chinese trading ships had anchored in the Gulf and traded with Arabs. Formal relations with
Arabia, however, began only with the T’ang dynasty (618 -907 C.E.), which was contemporary
with the rise and zenith of Arabian/Islamic power [Baojun, 2001: 80; Jun-yan, 1980: 91;
Bretschneider, 1929; idem, 1871].
In 638 Yazdigird III, grandson of Chosroes and Sasānian ruler of Persia, sent an embassy
to China appealing to the T’ang emperor, T’ai-tsung, for assistance against the Arabs who had
invaded his realm. Yazdigird’s son and the last Sasānian ruler, Fīrūz, made a similar appeal in
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650. This is not surprising. Chinese-Persian relations were quite intimate before the rise of the
Muslim Arabs. Over thirty Persian embassies from 455 to 651 are noted in Chinese sources and
trade and diplomacy flourished between the two countries. Persian (Mazdean) temples were
established in China and the relatively accurate accounts in official Chinese sources of pre-
Islamic Persian customs and religion suggest that real communication was taking place [Leslie,
1998: 3-4]. Fīrūz’s appeal for assistance was made while he, his son, and thousands of his
followers were given asylum in China. The T’ang emperor declined to offer military assistance,
however, but did send an embassy to the Caliph Uthman to plead the case of his Persian ally. In
return, Uthman sent an embassy to China in 650 bearing tribute. This was the beginning of
formal relations between the Islamic and the T’ang dynasty.
Between 650 and 798 the Muslims will send thirty-nine formal embassies to China [Junyan,
1980: 93]. Official Chinese records document these embassies, though the Arabic historical
tradition makes little mention of them. This latter circumstance, no doubt a consequence of the
above mentioned lacunae which characterizes the Arabic tradition, makes the Chinese sources
that much more valuable [Gibb, 1923]. While the Chinese records possess gaps of their own and
are prone to the occasional error, some of them are contemporary with the events they record
and in general show a good awareness of the major events in the Muslim world through the
reign of the ‘Abbāsid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (786-809). These sources show Chinese awareness
of: the rise of Muhammad (though the account is garbled); the Arab/Muslim conquests and the
rise of the caliphate; some caliphal ceremonial; Mu’awīya, the first Umayyad caliph, and his
unsuccessful siege of Constantinople; the Quraysh tribe and its political division between the
Banū Marwān (i.e. the Umayyads) and the Banū Hāshim (i.e. the ‘Abbāsids), and the latter’s
overthrow of the former. These sources also demonstrate accurate Chinese awareness of Arab
Muslim ethnicity.
The oldest relevant T’ang source at our disposal is the T’ung Tien, an encyclopedic
administrative tract written by the T’ang official Tu yu (d. 812). After 36 years Tu yu completed
the work and presented it to the throne in 801. As a high official Tu yu would have had access
to governmental archives. He also used as a source the first-hand account of his nephew, Tu
Huan. Tu Huan was taken prisoner after Arab and Chinese forces clashed at the Battle of Talas
in 751. He was incarcerated in Iraq until 762, when he was allowed to return to China. Tu Huan
made a record of his observations of the Muslims during his incarceration, and this record was
utilized by Tu yu. One portion of the T’ung Tien is a section dealing with the ‘western
barbarians (His jung),’ a history of China’s relations with the peoples on its western frontier:
Central Asia, Northern India, Sassānian Iran, Tibet, the Roman Orient, Arabia [Wakeman, 1990].
Arabia, called Ta-shi, is described in the last section, which reads in part:
During the Yung-Hui period (650-651) of the Great T’ang dynasty, the Arabs (Ta-shi)
dispatched missions to China. Their country is said to be located to the west of Persia or
alternatively, it was said that they were originally Persian Hu who, apparently with [a
spirit’s aid], obtained swords and killed…the men of the country have large noses. They
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are slender in shape and dark brown in color. They have heavy beards and whiskers,
like the Indians. Their women are graceful and pretty [trans. Behbehani, 1989: 99,
modified with Wakeman, 1990: 892-904].
This is likely the earliest extent reference to the embassy of 650. Some comment on this
text is in order. Prior to the rise of the caliphate the Chinese considered Arabia a part of Persia.
This is no doubt the context of the “alternative” account that the Arabians were originally
Persian (clients), before their rise to independent power and their extinguishing of Sassānian
Persia [Broomhall, 1910: 8; Drake, 1943: 23]. But the Chinese sources distinguished between
ethnic Arabs, called Ta-shi, and ethnic Persians, called Bosi [Leslie, 1998: 11]. This nomenclature
is significant. As is frequently noted, the Chinese double-character term for the Arabs, Ta-shi,
doubtlessly derives from the Persian Tā-zī. The latter is the Persianized form of the Syriac
tayyāyē, which properly means “Arab of the tribe of Tayyi’”[EI 2 s.v. al-Sin; Behbehani, 1989: 93].
The Banū Tayyi’ were a southern Arabian tribe that migrated north and who became one of the
most prominent tribes in pre-Islamic Arabian history [EI 2 s.v. Tayyi’]. It had important relations
with Persia and its clients, the Lakhmids of Iraq. They were so prominent in Pre-Islamic Arabia,
in fact, that their specific name became the general term for ‘Arab.’ Sogdian Persians regarded
the Tayyi’ as representative of the Arabs in general and thus designated the latter Tā-zī. The
significance of this point can be fully appreciated only when we consider the following
observation by scholar of Arabian ethnography Dana Marniche: “These Yemenite tribes of
Tayyi and his brother Madhj were notoriously black and the early Arabic writings make clear
that they also held fair-skin in derision or low regard [Marniche, n.d.].” It is thus unsurprising
that Ta-shi or Arabs encountered by and known to the Chinese are described as “dark brown in
color.”
This embassy of dark brown Arabs that visited the Chinese court in 650 likely included
Sa’d b. Abī Waqqās, the dark-brown or black-skinned uncle of the prophet Muhammad
[Pickens, 1942: 210-211]. Note also that this description of the Arab as dark brown in color with
an high nose and whiskers agrees with the description of Muhammad himself as recorded in
Chinese Muslim tradition [above].
The second Chinese source treating the Arabs as encountered during the T’ang is the
official T’ang History (T’ang Shu). In 941 the Chin emperor Kao-tsu ordered the production of a
full-scale dynastic history of the T’ang. This work, the Chiu T’ang shu (Old T’ang History), was
completed by the chief minister and director of National History, Liu Hsü, in 945 and presented
to the new emperor Shao-ti. A century later an imperial decree went out for a revised version:
the Hsin T’ang shu (New T’ang History) was presented to the throne in 1060. The description of
Ta-shi (Arabia) and its inhabitants is not much different from what we encounter in the T’ung
Tien. The Hsin T’ang shu records:
Ta-shi was originally part of Persia. The men have high noses, are black, and bearded.
The woman are very fair and when they go out they veil the face. Five times daily they
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worship God. They wear silver girdles, with silver knives suspended. They do not drink
wine, nor use music [trans. Mason, 1929: 68-69; cf. Behbehani, 1989: 93].
Here again we find the Arabs described as black-skinned with high noses. This consistent
presentation in official Chinese sources of ethnic Arabs as black-skinned is not unexpected, as
Chinese contact with black Arabs continued after the beginning of the Aryanization of the
Islamic world, including Arab ethnicity [on which see Muhammad, 2010: 22-27]. After the
misnomered ‘Abbasid revolution of 749-750 ended Islam’s ‘Black Dynasty,’ the Umayyad
dynasty [see Muhammad, 2009: 202-204], and catalyzed the Aryanization process which would
result in the establishment of the de-Arabized ‘Abbasid caliphate, some surviving Umayyad’s
(the Umayyads were slaughtered after the success of the revolution) showed up in 760 at the
court of the Chinese emperor Su Zong, who entertained them [Jun-yan, 1980: 93]. There is also a
report that earlier some descendents of Ali (ahl al-bayt) had fled Umayyad persecution to China
[Broomhall, 1910: 20]. Ahl al-Bayt, the descendents of Ali, were in the main black-skinned [Berry,
2002: 62-65; Muhammad, 2011: 11-14]. A Qurayshi Arab and descendant of Muhammad, Ibn
Wahhab, reportedly travelled to China in 870 and sought an audience with the emperor. He let
it be known at the Chinese court that he was ahl al-bayt, ‘family of the [Prophet’s] house’. Only
after the emperor ordered an inquiry into Ibn Wahhab’s familial claims and these were
confirmed did he meet with the Arab visitor [Israeli, 2000: 317-318; Mason, 1929: 70-75].
5. Conclusion
The pre-modern Chinese records on the Arab Muslims as well as the religious traditions
and memory of China’s peculiar Sino-Muslim community confirm what researchers like myself,
Marniche, Berry and a few others have been documenting: the Arabs who spread Islam from
the East to the West were black-skinned Arabs. The Prophet Muhammad was no exception.
This black-skinned Arab Muhammad all but disappears in the Arabic/Persian Muslim
literature, replaced there with a ruddy-white Persian Muhammad. Not only do hostile Christian
sources preserve the black Muhammad, however [see Muhammad, 2011: 1-2; idem, 2010:1-6];
the Chinese Muslims sources do as well. These pre-modern Chinese sources therefore make an
immeasurable contribution to our efforts to reconstruct the ‘Old’ Arab Islam, the Islam of the
ummah prior to the Aryanization processes that resulted in the very racist, misogynist, white
supremacist Islam of most of the modern Muslim world.
10

Endnotes
1. In one version of the Huihui yuan lai it is explicitly stated: “…the T’ang Emperor was
greatly pleased to see the portrait of Muhammad, who was the very man he had seen in
his dream. He said, ‘This is the very person I saw in my dream…” [Li and Luckert, 1994:
247]. In the Dungan version, it says also: “The Great Sovereign of the Middle Kingdon
(i.e. the T’ang Emperor) saw in his dream his worst enemy, the monster, and his friend,
the turban-wearer, who is the Prophet of the West, the Ma hui-hui [Muhammad].”
[Dyer, 1981-1983: 555].
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15