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

epresentation of MuÈammad therein in particular. 217 Indeed, the hostility shown towards blacks
in some Medieval Muslim Iranian writings provides a context in which to understand the
proclamation that anyone who claims MuÈammd is black should be killed. 218
A number of incidents indicates the changed Zeitgeist. Under Abå Ja#far al-Manßår (r.
754 – 775), the second #Abb§sid caliph, it was a common scene for Arabs to wait vainly for
admission at the caliphal gates, while Khurasanians freely entered, ridiculing the Bedouin Arabs
(a#r§bÊ) on their way in. 219 It was al-Manßår too who mocked the intensely black-skinned pure
217 Lewis, Race and Slavery, 95, 96 points out that the stereotype of a black man as a monster or bogeyman
figured prominently in Iranian mythology. See also Ibid., 53-54. Mino Southgate has documented that in Iranian
sources of the 10 th – 14 th centuries, Muslim and non-Muslim, “no group was the butt of such fierce racial attack as
were blacks…” Mino Southgate, “The Negative Images of Blacks in Some Medieval Iranian Writings,” Iranian
Studies 17 (1984): 3-35 (9). Southgate notes further: “many medieval Islamic Iranian sources show color
consciousness, depict negative black stereotypes, and reveal hostile sentiments toward blacks. This is not to say that
negative sentiments are not expressed about other groups…It is fair to say, however, aside from mildly positive
comments about Ethiopians, hardly anything good is said about blacks, and that the attack against this group…is
much more fierce than that against any other group…What motivated Muslim Iran to develop the grotesque images
and stereotypes…? (26)”.
It seems clear that anti-black racism was absent from or minimal in pre- and early Islamic Arabia. Even though
#Abduh BadawÊ’s study of Arabic poetry and the image of blacks therein, Al-Shu#ar§" al-Såd wa Khaߧ"ißuhum
fÊ l-Shi#r al-#ArabÊ (Cairo, 1973) found that “the Arabs despised the black color as much as they loved the white
color,” Bernard Lewis is surely right when he points out: “There are verses, indeed many verses, attributed to pre-
Islamic and early Islamic poets which would suggest very strongly a feeling of hatred and contempt directed against
persons of African birth or origin. Most, if not all of these, however, almost certainly belong to later periods and reflect later
problems, attitudes, and preoccupations…(emphasis mine)” Lewis, Race and Slavery, 22, 24-25, 87; idem, “Crows,” 90.
There is good evidence, Lewis informs us, that in pre-Islamic Arabia Ethiopians were regarded with respect as a
people with a higher civilization than that of the Arabs. There were African slaves, but these were treated no worse
than white slaves. Lewis notes: “pagan and early Islamic Arabia seems to have shared the general attitude of the
ancient world, which attached no stigma to blackness (Race and Slavery, 25)”. See further St. Clair Drake, Black
Folk Here and There 2 vols. (Los Angeles: Center For Afro-American Studies University of California, 1987)
II:85, 152; John Alembillah Azumah, The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa: A Quest for Inter-religious
Dialogue (Oxford: Oneworld, 2001) 130-131. It is also now clear that the Arabs themselves were a black-skinned
people, a fact which forces us to look for other explanations for any hints of anti-African sentiments we might find
among the early Arabs. A good illustration of this point is the case of Abå Dharr’s insulting Bil§l, the black-skinned
Companion of MuÈammad and freed-slave whose mother was an Ethiopian. It is reported that Abå Dharr, from
the Arab tribe Ghaf§r, insulted Bil§l by calling him ‘son of a black woman’. While this is frequently cited as an
example of an early Arab anti-black sentiment, several factors mitigate against this explanation. (1) Abå Dharr was a
black-skinned Arab. According to al-DhahabÊ, it was said that Abå Dharr was “black-skinned (§dam), huge, with a
thick beard.” He goes on to quote Ibn Burayda who claimed: “Abå Dharr was a black man (rajul aswad).” Siyar, II:
47, 50, 74.(2) The insult is social, not racial, expressing the contempt of the highborn for the baseborn. The slave
status of Bil§l’s mother was the point of the insult, not her dark-complexion. Secondly, the insult comments on the
fact that she was a non-Arab, and Bil§l was thus a hajÊn or half-breed (his father was an Arab). Such persons across
the board were looked down upon by purebred Arabs. “Son of a Persian woman (ibn al-f§risiyya)” and “Son of a
Frankish woman (ibn al-ifranjiyya)” were insults hurled around equally. See Lewis, “Crows,” 89; Goldziher, Muslim
Studies, I:120.(3) Abå Dharr reportedly later explained the insult, and race was not the factor: “Once there were
heated words between a friend (Bil§l) and I. His mother was a non-Arab and I insulted her. Then the Prophet (s)
asked me, ‘Did you insult so-and-so?’ I said yes. He (the Prophet) asked, ‘Did you mention his mother?’ I said, when
a person insults another he usually mentions his mother or father. The Prophet then said: ‘Surely you are one with
the Days of Ignorance in him.” Al-DhahabÊ, Siyar, II:72-73. From this report it is clear that blackness had nothing
to do with the insult, but non-Arabness and slave-status.
218 We find in this literature for example the claim that blacks are enemies of God and Islam and the killing of each
of them is penance for a lifetime of sin, for God wants them destroyed. See Southgate, “Negative Images,” 10.
219 Al-Ißfah§nÊ, Kit§b al-Agh§nÊ (Bål§q), XVIII:148; Goldziher, Muslim Studies, I:138. On al-Manßår as
architect of the policy to incorporate Sasanian culture into mainstream #Abb§sid culture see Gutas, Greek
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