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

enditions of textual descriptions of the Prophet’s physical appearance. 237 The text of the Èilya –
short descriptive lines – derives from the hadith and sÊra sources. The most popular is a
description of the Prophet attributed to #AlÊ b. AbÊ •§lib and found in al-TirmidhÊ’s Sham§"il:
The Messenger of God (s) was neither extremely tall nor extremely short, rather he was of
medium height. His hair was neither curly nor completely straight, rather in between. He
did not have a very fleshy face, neither was it completely round, rather it was only slightly
so. He was ruddy white (abya∙ mushrab bi-Èumra). His eyes were large with jet-black pupils
and long eyelashes. His joints were large as was his upper back. He did not have hair all
over his body but had a line of fine hair extending from his chest to his navel… 238
For all of the reasons cited above it is highly unlikely that the intensely black-skinned firstcousin
of the Prophet described him as white-complexioned. It is more probable that this
description was influenced by the fir§sa tradition. 239 This image of a ruddy MuÈammad “survives
the changes of time,” not because it “truly [expresses] the Prophet’s ephemeral and perpetual
characteristics,” which is most unlikely, at least as far as the ephemeral is concerned. 240 Rather,
another redistribution of ethnic weights within the empire was no doubt a major factor: the rise
of dawla turkiyya. 241 Calligraphic renditions of this ‘verbal portrait’ of MuÈammad are said to
have circulated as early as the ninth century, 242 but there is very little evidence that this was
common before the Ottoman period in the sixteenth century. 243 The ruddy-white Prophet
resonated with the Ottoman Turks, 244 while the marginalization of ethnic Arabs, who seem to
have been identified with blacks in Turkish folklore, 245 continued. 246 But it is in Iran today where
we meet “the ultimate expression” of the merging of this visual and verbal tradition of portraying
MuÈammad. 247 Portraits of MuÈammad, #AlÊ and the Imams have been poplar in Iran and
India since the time of Nasir al-DÊn Shah (r. 1846-96) and are found on canvas, mirror cases,
237 A good introduction to the Èilya tradition is still Annemarie Schimmel, And Muhammad is His Messenger:
The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press,
1985) 24-45. See further Grabar and Naif, “Story of Portraits of the Prophet,” 33-35;
238 Al-TirmidhÊ, al-Sham§"il al-MuÈammadÊya, #7.
239
Soucek, “Theory and Practice,” 106; Khalidi, Images, 97.
240 Contra Ali, “Literal to the Spiritual,” 10. Ali wrongly assumes that the features attributed to MuÈammad in the
#AlÊ b. AbÊ •§lib text and in the Èilya tradition in general are those of “an Arab archetype”.
241 On which see Lapidus, History, 117-120, 248-282. For a historical tour d’horizon of Arab-Turkish relations and
their impact on ideology see Ulrich W. Haarmann, “Ideology and History, Identity and Alterity: The Arab Image of
the Turk From the #Abbasids to Modern Egypt,” IJMES 20 (1988); idem, “Rather the Injustice of the Turks than the
Righteousness of the Arabs – Changing #Ulam§" Attitudes Towards Mamluk Rule in the Late Fifteenth Century,”
Studia Islamica 68 (1988): 61-77.
242 Soucek, “Theory and Practice,” 106.
243 Grabar and Naif, “Story of Portraits of the Prophet,” 34.
244 Schimmel, And Muhammad is His Messenger, 39; Grabar and Naif, “Story of Portraits of the Prophet,” 33-
34.
245 Pertev N. Boratav and W. Eberhard, “The Negro in Turkish Folklore,” Journal of American Folklore 64
(1951): 83-88. On the menial image of blacks in Ottoman literature and art see further Lewis, Race and Slavery,
92-98.
246 On the marginalization of the Arab in the dawla tukiyya see Haarmann, “Ideology and History,” and idem, “Rather
the Injustice”.
247 Grabar and Naif, “Story of Portraits of the Prophet,” 35.
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