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

Veddoid-Dravidoid racial type of India and the Ethiopian type of East Africa. 45 However, as late
as the 19th century dark-skinned Arabs were still noticeable in the Hejaz as well. Muhammad
Sadiq Bey, who traveled to Medina in 1861, noted that while there were some light-skinned,
almost white Medinese, the people were still basically of “a dark, almost black complexion.” 46 If
the Proto-Semites in general and the early Arabs in particular were a Kushite or dark-skinned
people, on this basis we would, again, expect the Arab prophet of noble genealogy to be a darkskinned
Arab. Evidence from the Classical Islamic literary tradition suggests that the alternative –
a white-skinned Arab prophet – is not only unlikely but even quite absurd.
III. The Black Arabs in Islamic Literary Tradition
The idea that true Arabs were black-skinned and that a fair complexion characterized
non-Arabs – Persians, Byzantines, Turks, ect. – is frequently met with in Classical Arabic/Islamic
literature. Ibn Maníår (d. 711/1311) in his Arabic lexicon, Lis§n al-#arab, notes the opinion
that the phrase aswad al-jilda, ‘black-skinned,’ idiomatically meant kh§liß al-#arab, “the pure
Arabs,” “because the color of most of the Arabs is dark (al-udma).” 47 In other words, blackness of
skin among the Arabs indicated purity of Arab ethnicity. Likewise did the famous grammarian
from the century prior, Muhammad b. BarrÊ al-‘AdawÊ (d. 589/1193) note that an akh∙ar or
black-skinned Arab was “a pure Arab (#arabÊ maÈ∙)” with a pure genealogy, “because Arabs
describe their color as black (al-aswad).” 48 Al-JaÈií (d. 255/869), in his Fakhr al-såd§n #al§ lbidan,
thus declared: “The Arabs pride themselves in (their) black color (al-#arab tafkhar bi-saw§d
al-lawn).” 49
“Into Burning Hadhramaut” The National Geographic Magazine 62 (1932): 393-421; Sir Arthur Keith and Dr.
Wilton Marion Krogan, “The Racial Characteristic of the Southern Arabs,” in Bertram Thomas, Arabia Felix,
Across the ‘Empty Quarter’ of Arabia (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932) 327 facing, 330 facing 333.
45 Speaking of the Qara Peterson (“Oman’s Diverse Society,” 261) notes: “European observers have made much of
their physical resemblance to Somalis or Ethiopians”. Vitaly V. Naumkin, Island of the Phoenix, an
Ethnological Study of the People of Socotra (Ithaca Press Reading, 1993) 67 notes also: “Socotra, and possibly
all of Southern Arabia, may after all be the missing intermediate link in the race-genetic ‘west-east’ gradient for
which anthropologists search in order to fill the gap between the African Negroids and the Australo-Veddo-
Melanesian types in the equatorial area.”. The Encyclopedia Britanica [9th Edition; 1:245-46 s.v. Arabia] lists
ten literary, linguistic, cultural, and ethnological evidences suggesting some relation between South Arabians and
Africa. See also EI 1 VIII: 1156 s.v. al-Yaman by Adolf Grohmann; Carleton Stevens Coon, The Races of Europe
(New York: The Macmillan Company, 1939) 402-3; Sir Arthur Keith and Dr. Wilton Marion Krogman, “The
Racial Characters of the Southern Arabs,” in Bertram Thomas, Arabia Felix, Across the ‘Empty Quarter’ of
Arabia (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932) 301-333; Bertram Thomas, “Anthropological Observatins in
South Arabia,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 62 (1932) 83-
103. For a discussion of the recent genetic data suggesting ancient and more recent gene-flow from Africa to Yemen
see Rídl, Edens, and 1erny, “Mitochondrial DNA Structure of Yemeni Population,” 69-78. On the cultural links
between Bronze Age Yemen and the Horn of Africa see Christopher Edens and T.J. Wilkinson, “Southwest Arabia
During the Holocene: Recent Archaeological Developments,” Journal of World History 12 (1998): 55-119.
46 John De St. Jorre, “Pioneer Photographer of the Holy Cities,” Saudi Aramco World (Jan-Feb 1999) 45.
47 Ibn Maníår, Lis§n al-#arab (Beirut: D§r al-‘§dir - D§r al-Bayråt, 1955-1956) s.v. ﺮﻀﺧﺍ IV:245f; See also
Edward William Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon (London: Williams & Norgate 1863) I: 756 s.v. ﺮﻀﺧ .
48 Ibn Maníår, Lis§n al-#arab, s.v. ﺮﻀﺧﺍ IV:245. On akh∙ar (lit. green) as black (aswad) see further al-MawardÊ, al-
AÈk§m al-sulã§niyya w"al-wil§y§t al-dÊniyya, trans. Wafaa H. Wahba, Al-MawardÊ: The Ordinances of
Government (Reading: Garnet Publishing, Ltd, 1996) 190; K. Vollers, “Über Rassenfarben in der arabischen
Literatur,” Centenario della nascita di Michele Amari 1 (1910) 3.
49 Al-JaÈií, Fakhr al-såd§n #al§ al-bidan, in Ris§"il Al-JaÈií, 4 vols. (Cairo, 1964) I:207. See also the English
translation by T. Khalidi, “The Boast of the Blacks Over the Whites,” Islamic Quarterly 25 (1981): 3-26 (17).
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