“Anyone who says that the Prophet is black should be killed”: The ...

to believe just as you believe, and if I were to do just as you do, would I enter Paradise with
you?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ Then the Prophet (s) said: ‘I swear by the One who owns my heart,
that the radiance of the Black person (baya∙ al-aswad) will be seen over the stretch of a
thousand years.’ 175
Ignaz Goldziher’s translation, “the black skin of the Ethiopian will spread a brilliance on the road
of a thousand years ” 176 certainly captures the context better than Lewis’, “the whiteness of the
Ethiopian will be seen over a stretch of a thousand years”. 177 The latter implies a chromatic
transformation on the part of the Ethiopian in Paradise, a theme that is wholly absent here. The
context is surely that of the different endowments between Semites and Hamites of somatic når
(light). In Paradise, however, Hamites (Ethiopians) will possess their fair share and, like the
Semites, their complexion will be both al-udma wa l-bay§∙.
VI.1. ‘His whiteness is a fair-skinnedness’: The Transfiguration of MuÈammad
It is pretty certain that as an Arab from the Banå H§shim of the Quraysh tribe,
MuÈammad was not fair-skinned. Yet, a number of reports do insist that “the whiteness of
[MuÈammad’s] complexion was a fair-skinnedness (abya∙ al-lawn mushrab Èumra).” 178 We are thus
confronted with what Clinton Bennett has aptly called “the problematic of divergent and
contradictory material” in the SÊra and hadith literature. 179 However, given the popularity and
canonicity that this image of a ruddy MuÈammad will eventually acquire, these reports don’t
have the distribution in the developing biographical literature that we might expect. It does not
have a particularly strong presense amoung the founding quartet of what Tarif Khalidi has called
the “Sira of primitive devotion,” i.e. a sÊra that stands in such awe of its subject that it presents all
of the reports that it gathers, paying little or no heed to conflict and consistency. 180 A good
illustration of this primitive devotion is surely Ibn Sa#d’s Kit§b al-ãabaq§t al-kabÊr: he cites
three reports explicitly attributing a black or dark complexion to MuÈammad; 181 three describing
him as abya∙ and four as azhar; and six attributing a white (aÈmar) complexion. 182 Ibn Sa#d makes
no attempt to reconcile these ‘contrasting images’. 183
On the other hand, Ibn Isȧq (d. 151/767), the author of the earliest extant biography
(sÊra), does not seem to have reported either of these contrasting images, 184 nor al-•abarÊ (d.
175 Ibn al-Jawzī, Kitāb tanwīr al-ghabash, 140 [Eng], 307 [Arb].
176 Goldziher, Muslim Studies, I:75.
177 Lewis, Race and Slavery, 35.
178 Ibn Sa#d, Kit§b al-ãabaq§t al-kabÊr, I/i,120, 121,122, 124, 129 (Ar.); Bal§dhurÊ, Ans§b, I: 391 § 836; 394 §
848.
179 Bennett, In Search, 44. On which see also Khalidi, Images, 72-78.
180 Khalidi, Images, 17.
181 Along with the two cited above on the authority of An§s b. M§lik and #Abd All§h b. #Abb§s, he cites the following
suggestive report: al-Zubayr reported on the authority of Ibr§hÊm: “The Messenger of Allah (s) stretched his left foot,
such that the blackness of its exposed part (í§hiruh§ aswad) was visible.” Ibn Sa#d, Kit§b al-ãabaq§t al-kabÊr,
I/i,127 (Ar.); 495 (Eng).
182 See above no. 179.
183 On contrasting images of MuÈammad in the sÊra as well as counter-narratives see Khalidi, Images, 73-75.
184 A review of Ibn Hish§m, SÊrat Rasål All§h, ed. F. Wüstenfeld (Göttingen, 1858-59) (=The Life of
Muhammad, trans. A. Guillaume [London, 1955] 183-84) turns up no such report.
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