Prophet Muhammad and the Black Arabs - Dr. Wesley Muhammad

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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 6
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 7
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Prophet Muhammad and the Black Arabs - Dr. Wesley Muhammad

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