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

VII.2. Hellenizing the Prophet
It was not only Persian Sasanian influences that impacted Islam and its representation of
MuÈammad. The first wave of the Islamic conquests (632-641) secured Arab dominion over
Hellenized areas (Syria, Egypt, and the western portion of the Sasanian empire). 227 Rather than
being smothered, this Hellenism continued in the Arab-ruled territories as a living force of
surprising vigor. 228 It seems even that the ‘Semitic bedrock’ in pre-Islamic Arabia, out of which
Islam can be said to have developed, itself came under Hellenistic influences. 229 Nevertheless, we
can safely speak of real differences between Semitism and Hellenism, and early Semitic Islam was
no exception. 230 Yet even though one dominant Islamic school of thought openly rejected the
Classical tradition, 231 eventually Islamic civilization would be greatly impacted by it through
converts and translations into Arabic of Hellenistic literature. 232
One such text translated into Arabic which impacted Islamic tradition and likely the
profile of the Prophet is Polemo’s (second century) de Physiognomonia. 233 According to Polemo the
ideal man who loves scholarship has a well-proportioned, straight figure, a ruddy-white
complexion, and wavy, reddish brown hair, smooth and not curly or thick. This Hellenistic
physiognomy tradition influenced popular Islamic physiognomy (fir§sa) traditions. 234 We are thus
not surprised to learn that the caliph al-Ma"mån (r. 813-833), famous for his role in the
Translation Movement, claimed to have seen Aristotle himself in a dream, ruddy-white with a
high forehead and handsome features. 235 But this Hellenistic physiognomy also impacted
representations of MuÈammad. 236 A contributing factor to the popularizing of this ruddy
Prophet is undoubtedly the development and popularity of the Èilya tradition, calligraphic
227 Franz Rosenthal, The Classical Heritage in Islam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 2.
228 Averil Cameron, “The Eastern Provinces in the 7th Century A.D. Hellenism and the Emergence of Islam,” in
Hellenismos: Quelques jalons pour une histoire de l’identité grecque: actes du Colloque de
Strasbourg, 25-27 octobre 1989, ed. S. Said (Leiden and New York, 1991), 295.
229 G.W. Bowersock, “Hellenism and Islam,” in idem, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Jerome Lectures 18; Ann
Arbor, 1990), 71-82.
230 Wesley Williams, “A Body Unlike Bodies: Transcendent Anthropomorphism in Ancient Semitic Tradition and
Early Islam,” JAOS 129 (2009): 19-44; Daud Rahbar, “Relation of Muslim Theology to the Qur"§n,” MW 51
(1961): 44-49.
231 Ignaz Goldziher, “The Attitude of Orthodox Islam Toward the ‘Ancient Sciences’,” in Merlin L. Swartz (ed.),
Studies on Islam (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981) 185-215.
232 On Hellenism and Islam generally see further Gutas, Greek Thought; Lapidus, History, 77-80; W.
Montgomery Watt, Islamic Philosophy and Theology: an Extended Survey, 2nd edn (Edinburgh, 1985), 37-
49; F. E. Peters, “Hellenism and the Near East,” BA (Winter 1983): 33-39; idem, Allah’s Commonwealth. A
History of Islam in the Near East 600-1200 A.D. (New York, 1973); idem, “The Origins of Islamic Platonism:
The School Tradition,” in Islamic Philosophical Theology, ed. Parviz Morewedge (Albany, 1979), 14-45;
Gustave E. von Grunbaum, “Islam and Hellenism,” in idem, Islam and Medieval Hellenism: Social and
Cultural Perspectives, ed. Dunning S. Wilson (London, 1976), 21-27; W.F. Albright, “Islam and the Religions of
the Ancient Orient,” JAOS 60 (1940): 283-301.
233 Rosenthal, Classical Heritage, 239, 251-253.
234 EI2 II: 916-917 s.v. Fir§sa by T. Fahd.
235 Rosenthal, Classical Heritage, 48.
236 Khalidi, Images, 96-97; Priscilla Soucek, “The Theory and Practice of Portraiture in the Persian Tradition,”
Muqarnas 17 (2000): 106. See e.g. Abå \§tim al-R§zī, A#lam al-nubuwwah, ed. Salah al-Sawy (Tehran:
Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1977)85-86.
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