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

“Anyone who says that the Prophet is black should be killed”:
The De-Arabization of Islam and the Transfiguration of MuÈammad in Islamic Tradition ∗
By Wesley Williams, PhD
Michigan State University
(Work In Progress)
Abstract
This paper argues that a convergence of evidences – linguistic, ethnographic, and literary
– suggests that the earliest documented Arabs were likely a Kushite or dark-skinned group,
probably derivative from a group of African ‘Proto-Semitic’ speakers that possibly entered the
Levant from Africa several millennia before the Common Era. The Classical Arabic/Islamic
literary sources confirm the same, that a noble Arab was a black-skinned Arab. This makes it
most unlikely that the Islamic prophet MuÈammad, reputedly a most noble Arab, was fairskinned
as in the popular imagination and in official and un-official representations, literary as
well as visual. We have every reason to believe that the Islamic prophet was a black-skinned
Arab, including explicit testimony in the literary sources. While testimony to a fair-skinned
MuÈammad is found there as well, this is no doubt a secondary development that was impacted
by a profound shift in the demographic balance of power in the Muslim world that followed the
#Abb§sid Revolution of 132/750. An ethnically Arab MuÈammad was no longer palatable to the
tastes of a now ethnically diverse umma, and the changed status of Arabs and non-Arabs within
the kingdom is reflected in the new representation of the Prophet. This study suggests the need
for a closer look at the development of the racial ethic in Islam and the impact this develment
had on the the emerging Islamic tradition.
I. Introduction
In the 14th century illuminated manuscript the Luttrell Psalter there is a rather fascinating
image of a joust between the Crusader Richard the Lionheart and the Muslim Sultan, Salah ad-
Din, the Saladin of legend. 1 Saladin himself is depicted dark blue with a grotesque physiognomy.
This conforms to Christian polemical convention of the Middle Ages: the Saracens or Muslim
Arabs (and Turks) were depicted dark and this darkness associated them with the demonic
world. 2 In representations their physiognomical features are also routinely distorted to imply such
an association.
Particularly arresting about this ‘Saracen’ depiction is the shield carried by Saladin:
engraved on it is the image of the head of a black man with what could be taken as curly hair.
His features are likewise distorted, yet his realistic African (Ethiopian?) features are conspicuous
(e.g. while Saladin’s complexion is an unrealistic blue the head on the shield is a realistic dark
brown). Who is the black man on Saladin’s shield supposed to be? Debra Higgs Strickland, who
∗
I would like to thank Dana Marniche and Tariq Berry for their invaluable feedback and material contributions to
this paper.
1 On the Luttrell Psalter see Michael Camille, Mirror in Parchment: The Luttrell Psalter and the Making of
Medieval England (London: Reaktion, 1998).
2 See especially Debra Higgs Strickland, Saracens, demons, & Jews: making monsters in medieval art
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003) Chapter 2, 168, 173, 179-180. For images of black Turks (Tartars) see
Michael Camille, The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991) 154-155.
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has studied the depiction of Muslims in this Christian literature and iconography, suggests that it
is the image of the Islamic prophet MuÈammad. 3 It is the case that, at least in Christian literary
depictions of the Muslims, it was the latter’s practice to carry images of MuÈammad on their
shield. 4 But these are pro-Crusader polemics that went out of their way to misrepresent their
Muslim enemy. Thus, even if Strickland is right in her identification, we cannot take these
representations as necessarily reflecting any historical reality. 5 It is not impossible, however, that
some Christians encountered such images of the prophet of Islam among some Muslims. The
presence of Muslim proscriptions against such iconography is no real argument against this
possibility: images of MuÈammad exist today and have existed in the Muslim world, since at least
the 13th century and maybe earlier, in spite of this proscription. 6 In any case, it seems that,
whatever the source of their information, some European Christians imagined that the prophet
of their dark-skinned Muslim enemies was himself dark-skinned. 7
That the prophet MuÈammad was a white-skinned Arab of noble genealogy is a Muslim
and Western academic orthodoxy. Islamicist Frederick Mathewson Denny, in his widely used
textbook, An Introduction to Islam, describes the Prophet as “reddish-white, he had black
eyes and long eyelashes”. 8 This is no doubt based on a long pre-modern Islamic literary and
iconographic tradition, 9 a tradition so detailed some scholars are convinced that an accurate
3 Strickland, Saracens, demons, & Jews, 179, 189.
4 Paul Bancourt, Les Musulmans dans les chansons geste du cycle du roi, 2 vols. (Aix-en-Provence:
Publications Diffusion, 1982) II: 914-915; Meredith Jones, “The Conventional Saracen of the Songs of Geste,”
Speculum 17 (1942): 214. Especially illuminating in this regard is no doubt the Itinerarium Peregrinorum (Itinerary of
the Pilgrims), a Latin prose narrative of King Richard I of England which chronicles England’s participation in the
Third Crusade in 1189-1192. Saladin was the Muslim ruler of Egypt and Syria (and thus of Jerusalem) during the
Third Crusade, making the claims of the Itinerarium Peregrinorum relevant to our famous Luttrell Psalter image. The
anonymous English (?) author says regarding the Muslim ‘enemy’: “Among [the Christians’] opponents was a
fiendish race, forceful and relentless, deformed by nature and unlike other living beings, black in color, of enormous
stature and inhuman savageness. Instead of helmets they wore red coverings (i.e. turbans) on their heads,
brandishing in their hands clubs bristling with iron teeth, whose shattering blows neither helmets nor mailshirts
could resist. As a standard they carried a carved effigy of Muhammad.” Quoted from Strickland, Saracens,
demons, & Jews, 169.
5 Jones, “Conventional Saracen,” passim.
6 See Wijdan Ali, “From the Literal to the Spiritual: The Development of the Prophet Muhammad’s Portrayal from
13th Century Ilkhanid Miniatures to 17th Century Ottoman Art,” EJOS 4 (2001) (=M. Kiel, N. Landman and H.
Theunissen [edd.], Proceedings of the 11th International Congress of Turkish Art, Utrecht – The
Netherlands, August 23-28, 1999, No. 7: 1-24); Priscilla P. Soucek, “The Life of the Prophet: Illustrated
Versions,” in Priscilla P. Soucek (ed.), Content and Context of Visual Arts in the Islamic World (University
Park and London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988) 193-217. Sir Thomas W. Arnold, Painting in
Islam: A Study of the Place of Pictorial Art in Muslim Culture (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1965)
91-100.
7
Strickland notes that in this Christian literature and iconography “dark skin is an indentifying attribute of Saracens
(1973).” See further John V. Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2002) 106 and Diane Speed, “The Saracens of King Horn,” Speculum 65 (1990): 580-
582.
8 Frederick Mathewson Denny, An Introduction to Islam, Third Edition (Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006) 69. See also Tarif Khalidi Images of Muhammad: Narratives of the Prophet in
Islam Across the Centuries (New York: Doubleday, 2009) 42, 97.
9 E.g. Ibn Sa#d, Kib§b al-ãabaq§t al-kabÊr, edd. Eugen Mittwoch and Eduard Sachau, Ibn Saad: Biographien
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1917) I/ii,120-127 (=idem, Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir, trans. S. Moinul Haq and H.K.
Ghazanfar [Karachi: Pakistan Historical Society, 1986] I/ii, 484-499); ‘aÈÊÈ BukharÊ, b§b ßifat al-nabÊ, nos. 744,
747 (=The Translation of the Meanings of ‘aÈÊÈ BukharÊ, Arabic-English, trans. Dr. MuÈammad MuÈsin
Kh§n [Medina: Islamic University, 1985] IV: 485-488); Muslim, ‘aÈÊÈ Muslim, b§b: k§na al-nabÊ (s) abya∙, malÊÈ al-
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likeness of the Prophet could easily be drawn by an artist. 10 In Muslim iconography, even when
the proscription against depicting the visage of the Prophet is honored, often an exposed limb
(e.g. a hand) leaves no doubt as to the white complexion of God’s Last Messenger. 11
The real question is thus not ‘How could Muslims have depicted MuÈammad’ but rather
‘How could Muslims have possibly depicted MuÈammad as black”! No less of an authority than
Q§∙Ê #Iy§∙ (d. 544/1149), in his famous al-Shif§, could report: “AÈmad b. AbÊ Sulaym§n, the
companion of SaÈnån, said, ‘Anyone who says that the Prophet was black (aswad) should be
killed. The Prophet was not black’.” 12 This declaration of course raises its own set of questions,
like: Why would such a fatwa even be necessary except there was in circulation the claim that the
Prophet was black. On what was such a claim based? And why would describing MuÈammad as
black, whatever its historical merits, be so offensive as to warrant death? 13 We might be tempted
to dismiss the Christian depiction of dark-skinned Muslims as imbued with polemical symbolism,
which it certainly possesses. But it is equally true that the Muslims’ own depictions are imbued
with apologetic symbolism. 14 In addition, while blackness in particular in this Christian literary
and iconographic tradition has symbolic, moral significance, 15 we no doubt have to do here with
a “convergence entre la réalité et le symbolism” 16;
that the conquering Muslims from Arabia
wajh, apud al-NawawÊ, Minhaj sharÈ ‘aÈÊÈ Muslim, 18 vols., ed. KhalÊl Ma"mån ShÊh§ (Beirut: D§r al-Ma#rifa,
1994) XV: 92-97 nos. 6025, 6026, 6033-6035 (=Muslim, ‘aÈÊÈ Muslim, 4 vols. Trans. ‘Abdul \amÊd ‘iddÊqÊ
[New Delhi: Kit§b Bhavan, 1994 (1977)] IV: 1250-1251 nos. 5777-5778, 5785-5786); Abå D§wåd al-Sijist§nÊ,
Sunan Abu Dawud (The Third correct Tradition of the Prophetic Sunna), English-Arabic, 5 vols. trans.
Mohammad Mahdi al-Sharif (Beirut: Dar al-Kotob Al-ilmiyah, 2008) V/xxxv, no. 4864; Al-TirmidhÊ, Sunan al-
TirmidhÊ (Hims: Maktabat D§r al-Da#wah, 1965-) VI:69 no. 1754; Al-TirmidhÊ, al-Sham§"il al-NabÊ, edd.
M§hir Y§sin Fahl and Bashsh§r #Aww§d Ma#råf (Beirut: D§r al-Gharb al-Isl§mÊ, 2000) nos. 6, 12, 14; al-BayhaqÊ,
Dal§"il al-nubuwwah wa ma#rifat aÈw§l ߧÈib al-sharÊ#ah, ed. #Abd al-Mu#tÊ Qal#ajÊ (Beirut: D§r al-Kutub
al-#IlmÊya, 1985) I:201-209; Ibn KathÊr, al-Bid§yah wa-"l-nih§yah (Beirut: Maktabat al-Ma#§rif, 1966) VI:13-15.
In terms of the iconographic tradition see e.g. Arnold, Painting, Plates XIX-XXIII; Ali, “From the Literal,” Figs. 1-
11.
10 Khalidi Images, 96; Clinton Bennett, In Search of Muhammad (London and New York: Cassell, 1998) 36.
11 See e.g. Ali, “From the Literal,” Figs. 9, 11; Jonathon E. Brockopp (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to
MuÈammad (Cambridge: University Press, 2010) 49 fig. 3.
12 Al-Q§∙Ê ‘Iy§∙ b. Mås§ al-YaÈßubÊ, al-Shif§ bi-ta#rÊf Èuqåq al-Mußãaf§ (al-JÊzah: D§r al-F§råq lil-Istithm§r§t
al-Thaq§fiyah, 2009) 558, 540 (=Muhammad: Messenger of Allah. Ash-Shifa of Qadi ‘Iyad, trans. Aisha
Abdarrahman Bewley [Scotland: Madinah Press Inverness, 2004] 387, 375)
13 The Iranian shaykhs Maulana Muhammad Zakaria and Ahmed E. Bemat, in their commentary on al-TirmidhÊ’s
al-Sham§"il al-MuÈammadÊyah, claim: “the Holy Prophet’s (s) white complexion had a touch of redness and
there was a luster in it…Hence the Imams have stated that ‘if someone says that the Holy Prophet’s (s) complexion
was black, we will issue a fatwa of infidelity (kufr) for him because he insulted and disparaged the Holy Prophet (s) and
the insulting and disparaging of a prophet amounts to infidelity…” Shaikh a-Hadith Maulana Muhammad Zakaria
and Shaikh al-Hadith Mufti Ahmed E. Bemat, in Shamail-e-Tirmizi, trans. Prof. Murtaza Hussain F. Qurashi
(New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 2006) 11. This raises an important question itself, to be explored further below: what is
the social, political, ideological and/or demographic context in which the simple attribution of a black complexion to
a prophet is tantamount to insulting that prophet?
14 As Khalidi, Images, 42 points out regarding such descriptions of MuÈammad as ‘white’, etc.: “these physical
characteristics are clearly symbolic in character...One might argue that most of these physical attributes appear to
point to his immaculateness and his freedom from physical blemish. Many are allusions to the descriptions of
beautiful women in pre-Islamic poetry…the age of the Hadith…was far more sensitive to physiognomy than we are:
to them, the physical exterior of a human being was intimately linked to his or her moral character.”
15 Bancourt, Les Musulmans, I:69.
16 Bancourt, Les Musulmans, I:58. Bancourt acknowledged this convergence only with regard to depictions of
blond Saracens, and argued instead that “Beaucoup de Sarrasins sont noirs non parce que cette representation a un
support objectif et historique, mais parce qu’ils sont méchants et maudits.” Ibid. 71. We will argue differently below.
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were dark-skinned is attested in a number of sources. 17 It will be argued here that a convergence
of evidences – linguistic, ethnographic, and literary – suggests that the Christian depiction of a
dark-skinned MuÈammad is likely a more faithful historical representation – mutatis mutandis its
polemical distortions – of Islam’s prophet. It will be further suggested that, among other things, a
“cataclysmic shift in the demographic balance of power” in the Muslim world that followed the
#Abb§sid Revolution of 132/750 impacted the representation of MuÈammad in Muslim
literature. 18
II. Ancient Semites: MuÈammad’s African Ancestors?
The famed Muslim historian and Qur"§nic exegete al-•abarÊ (d. 310/923) recorded in his
Ta"rÊkh al-rusul wa"l-mulåk the following tradition on the authority of #Abd Allāh b. #Abbās
(d. 68/687), the cousin of the prophet MuÈammad:
The Children of Sam (Shem) settled al-Majdal, the center of the Earth, which is between
Satidim§ and the sea and between Yemen and Syria. Allah made the prophets from them,
revealed the Books to them, made them beautiful, gave them a dark complexion, luminous
and free of blemish (al-udma wa l-bay§∙). The children of Ham settled in the south, along the
course of the south and west wind-this region is called al-D§råm. Allah gave them a dark
complexion, a few of whom were also luminous and free of blemish…The children of
Japheth settled in al-‘afån, along the course of the north and east wind. They are ruddycomplexioned
and very fair-skinned (al-Èumra wa l-shaqra). 19
This tradition of dark-skinned Semites and Hamites in contrast to fair-skinned Japhites of
the north is found in Rabbinic Hebrew literature as well. 20 Al-•abarÊ’s report makes two curious
claims. First, while both Semites and Hamites are dark-skinned, there is a distinction between the
two complexions: the former’s dark complexion is characterized by being bay§∙, i.e. free of
blemish and imbued with a sheen or luminosity. 21
17 See below. We are using ‘black’ here chromatically, not ethnically.
18 The language “cataclysmic shift in the demographic balance of power” to describe the consequence of the
#Abb§sid Revolution is that of Saleh Said Agha, The Revolution Which Toppled the Umayads: Neither Arab
nor ‘Abbāsid (Leiden: Brill, 2003) 3.
19 Al-•abarÊ, Ta"rÊkh al-rusul wa"l-mulåk, edd. Michael Jan de Goeje and Lawrence Conrad, Annals of the
Apostles and Kings. A Critical Edition Including ‘Arib’s Supplement (Gorgias Press, 2005) vol. I, 220-
221; The History of al-•abarÊ Volume II: Prophets and Patriarchs, translated and annotated by William M.
Brinner (Alban, NY: State University of New York Press, 1985) 19.
20 For example the 8th century Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer, Chapter 23 [28a] (Friedlander edition): “Noah brought his sons
and his grandsons, and he blessed them with their (several) settlements, and he gave them as an inheritance all the
earth. He especially blessed Shem and his sons, black but comely, and he gave them the inhabitable earth. He
blessed Ham and his sons, black like a raven, and he gave them as an inheritance the coast of the sea. He blessed
Japheth and his sons, they entirely white, and he gave them for an inheritance the desert and its fields; these (are the
inheritances with) which he endowed them.”
21 On al-bay§∙ as ‘luminous’ and free of blemish raher than as ‘white-skinned’ see below.
4
On the other hand, the dark-complexion of
most (but not all) Hamites (i.e. Africans) lack this characteristic. This distinction will take on
greater significance for us later. Secondly, prophecy is the inheritance of a particular ethnic
group: dark-skinned Semites. It would then follow that the prophets were all dark-skinned

Semites, probably all genealogically related. 22 We know Mås§ (Moses) was black-skinned and, 23
while this is controversial, according to a number of reports Is§ (Jesus) was as well. 24 From this
perspective one might expect Islam’s last prophet to be a dark-skinned Semite too.
This religio-literary tradition of dark-skinned Semites is consistent with the linguistic
evidence. “Semitic” is properly a linguistic designation, not racial, and describes several living
and dead languages and their native speakers. The Semitic family of languages, the most
widespread of which is Arabic, is a branch of a larger language phylum, called by some scholars
Afroasiatic (hereafter AA), which consists of the Semitic, Ancient Egyptian, Berber, Cushitic,
Omotic and Chadic families. 25 While a few scholars maintain that the AA family originated in
Asia, 26 most now seem to argue that it originated in Africa where five of the six generally
recognized branches still reside. 27 The Proto-Semites likely originated from these African AA
speakers, either in Africa itself or maybe, after migrating northward, in the Levant. 28
22 The Qur"§n suggests that the prophets were all of the same family, the progeny (dhurriya) of Adam through
Abraham (57:26; 29:27; 4:163; 19:58). MuÈammad referred to the prophets as paternal brothers (awl§d #al§t): ‘aÈÊÈ
BukharÊ, kit§b aȧdith al-anbiy§", # 651, 652. See further David S. Powers, MuÈammad Is Not the Father of
Any of Your Men: The Making of the Last Prophet (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009) 51;
Willem A Bijlefeld, “A Prophet and More than a Prophet?” Muslim World 59 (1969): 17-18.
23 Moses was reportedly tall, thin, curly (ja#d) or straight (sabiã) haired and black-skinned (§dam): ‘aÈÊÈ BukharÊ, kit§b
aȧdith al-anbiy§", # 574, 607, 608, 647, 648.
24 According to an oft-quoted hadith: “Ibn Umar narrated: the Prophet (s) said: “[During my Ascension to Heaven] I
saw Moses, Jesus, and Abraham. Jesus was white-skinned (aÈmar), curly haired with a broad chest; Moses was blackskinned
(§dam), straight-haired and tall as if he was from the people of al-£uãã”: ‘aÈÊÈ BukharÊ, kit§b aȧdith alanbiy§",
# 648; Ibn Sa#d, Kib§b al-ãabaq§t al-kabÊr, I/ii,125 (=Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir, I/ii, 492). On this
account it is popularly accepted that, while Moses was black-skinned, Jesus was white-skinned. However, another
report insists that this is erroneous: “S§lim narrated from his father: ‘No, By Allah, the Prophet (s) did not say that
Jesus was white-skinned but said: “While I was asleep circumambulating the Ka’ba (in my dream), suddenly I saw a
black-skinned man (rajul §dam) with straight hair walking between two men, and water dripping from his head. I
asked who he was, and the men said he is the Son of Mary (Jesus). Then I looked behind and saw a white-skinned
man (rajul aÈmar), fat, curly-haired and blind in the right eye which looked like a bulging grape. I asked whom he was
and they said, ‘This is al-Dajj§l’.”’”: ‘aÈÊÈ BukharÊ, kit§b aȧdith al-anbiy§", # 650, 649. In other words, the whiteskinned
man seen in MuÈammad’s vision was not Jesus, who was seen as a black-skinned man, but al- Dajj§l. #AlÊ
Q§wÊ al-HarawÊ (d. 1014/1605) in his commentary on al-TirmidhÊ’s famous al-Sham§"il al-MuÈammadÊyah
mentions a variant hadith according to which MuÈammad said regarding Jesus: “I saw a black-skinned man (rajul
§dam), the best one can see among black-skinned men.” Q§wÊ al-HarawÊ, Kit§b jam# al-was§"il fÊ sharÈ alsham§"il
(Istanbul: Maãba’at Shaykh YaÈy§, 1874) 58.
25 See John Huehnergard, “Afro-Asiatic,” in Roger D. Woodard (ed.), The Ancient Languages of Syria-
Palestine and Arabia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) 225-246.
26 Jared Diamond and Peter Bellwood, “Farmers and Their Languages: The First Expansions,” Science 300 (2003):
597-603; idem, “Response,” Science 306 (2004) 1681; Alexander Militariev, “Home for Afrasian: African or
Asian,” in Cushitic and Omotic Languages: Proceedings of the Third International Symposium,
Berlin, March 17-19, 1994 (Berlin, 1994) 13-32; “Evidence of Proto-Afrasian Cultural Lexicon (1. Cultivation of
Land. II. Crops. III. Dwelling and Settlement),” in Hans G. Mukarovsky (ed.), Proceedings of the Fifth
International Hamito-Semitic Congress (Wien, 1990) I: 73-85; Werner Vycichl, “The Origin of the Hamito-
Semitic Languages,” in Herrmann Jungraithmayr and Walter W. Müller (edd.), Proceedings of the Fourth
Internation Hamito-Semitic Congress, Marburg, 20-22 September, 1983 (Amsterdam and Philadelphia:
John Benjaminus Publishing Company, 1987) 109-121.
27 Huehnergard, “Afro-Asiatic,” 225; Christopher Ehret, S.O.Y Keita and Paul Newman, “The Origins of
Afroasiatic,” Science 306 (2004) 1680-1681; Carleton T. Hodge, “Afroasiatic: The Horizon and Beyond,” in Scott
Noegel and Alan S. Kaye (edd.), Afroasiatic Linguistics, Semitics, and Egyptology: Selected Writings of
Carleton T. Hodge (Bethesda, Maryland: CDL Press, 2004) 64; Christopher Ehret, Reconstructing Proto-
Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): vowels, tone, consonants, and vocabulary (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1995) 487; Nicholas Faraclas, “They Came Before the Egyptians: Linguistic Evidence for the
5

An African origin of the Proto-Semites would make the evidence of an African
background to the early Arabs comprehensible. George Mendenhall believes he has identified
the “earliest identifiable Arabic-speaking social group,” viz. the Midianites, an important political
entity that came into existence suddenly in the 13th century BCE in northwest Arabia.
Mendenhall argues that this highly sophisticated culture spoke a language which is an archaic
ancestor of modern Arabic. 29 This is significant, if true, because as David Goldenberg
documents, “Kush is the ancient name of Midian” and “the people of Northwest Arabia (Midian)
were called Kushites.” 30 This would make the earliest identifiable group of Arabic-speakers
Kushites. If, as Jan Restö suggests as well, the Priestly author(s) of the Hebrew Bible offers us the
earliest attempt at a systematic description of peoples living on the Arabian peninsula around the
7th century BCE, 31 these peoples in general are there identified as Kushites (Gen 10:7) too. 32 The
Classical authors called the whole region from India to Egypt, both counties inclusive, by the
name Ethiopia. 33 Kushites were the dominant ethnic group in Syro-Palestine in late 8th and 7th African Roots of Semitic Languages,” in Silvia Federici (ed.), Enduring Western Civilization: The
Construction of the Concept of Western Civilization and Its “Others” (Westport, Connecticut and
London: Praeger, 1995) 175-96; Joseph H. Greenberg, "African linguistic classification," in Joseph Ki-Zerbo (ed.),
General History of Africa, Volume 1: Methodology and African Prehistory (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press. 1981) 292–308. On the Africa vs. Asia AA Origin dispute see Daniel P. Mc Call,
“The Afroasiatic Language Phylum: African in Origin, or Asian?” Current Anthropology 39 (1998): 139-143.
28 A number of scholars postulate an African origin of the Semitic linguistic family and its speakers: See e.g. Gregorio
del Olmo Lete, Questions of Semitic Linguistics. Root and Lexeme: The History of Research (Bethesda,
Maryland: CDL Press, 2008) 115; Edward Lipiński, Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative
Grammar (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters and Departement Oosterse Studies, 1997) 42-43; Faraclas, “They Came
Before the Egyptians” 190; A. Murtonen, Early Semitic (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967), 74; George Aaron Barton,
Semitic and Hamitic Origins: Social and Religious (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1934) 8;
idem, “The Origins of Civilization in Africa and Mesopotamia, Their Relative Antiquity and Interplay,”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 68 (1929) 303-312. On the other hand, some scholars
postulate a Levantine origin of Proto-Semitic. That is to say, a group of African AA speakers migrated northeast into
the Levant and there evolved the Proto-Semitic language, maybe as early as the 8 th millennium BCE. See Peter
Bellwood, First Farmers: The Origin of Agricultural Societies (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005) 209; Igor
M. Diankonoff, “The Earliest Semitic Society,” Journal of Semitic Studies 43 (1998): 209-219; idem, “Earliest
Semites in Asia,” Altorientalische Forschungen 8 (1981)23-70 (the former article by Diankonoff [1998] is a
modification of his views expressed in this latter article [1981]).
29 George E. Mendenhall, “Arabic in Semitic Linguistic History,” JAOS 126 (2006): 17-26; The Anchor Bible
Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman et al, 6 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1992) 4:815 s.v. Midian by George E.
Mendenhall; idem, “The Syro-Palestinian Origins of the Pre-Islamic Arabic,” in Studies in the History and
Archaeology of Palestine, vol. III (Aleppo University Press, 1988) 215-223.
30 David M. Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World) (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2005) 28, 54. See also Jan Retsö, The Arabs in Antiquity: Their History from the
Assyrians to the Umayyads (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003) 139.
31 Retsö, Arabs in Antiquity, 212. Fred V. Winnett similarly saw the genealogies of Gen. 10:7 as Arabian
genealogies which “contain information of considerable value for the reconstruction of early Arabian history.” He
assumes these genealogies reflect the political and tribal situation in 6 th cent BCE Arabia. Fred V. Winnett, “The
Arabian Genealogies in the Book of Genesis,” in Harry Thomas Frank and William L. Reed (edd.), Translating
and Understanding the Old Testament. Essays in Honor of Herbert Gordon May (Nashville and New
York: Abingdon Press, 1970) 173.
32 Regarding the genealogies of Gen. 10:7 Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Commentary (Minneapolis:
Augsburg Publishing House, 1984) 511 notes: “It is certain that the majority of the names describes peoples in
Arabia,” not Africa.
33 E.g. Strabo, Geography, Book I, Chapter 2, §§ 24-40; E. A. Wallis Budge, A History of Ethiopia, Nubia and
Abyssinia (According to the Hieroglyphic Inscriptions of Egypt and Nubia and the Ethiopian
6

centuries BCE, 34 though the Africoid presence there probably went back as far as the Natufian
culture of the 10 th millennium BCE. 35 These were no doubt black or dark-skinned (though not
necessarily Negroid) Syro-Palestinians. 36 Being that peoples designated as Arabs first appear in
sources connected with events in Syria in the first centuries of the first millennium BCE, 37 it is
not unlikely that the historical Arabs emerged out of these various groups of Arabian Kushites. 38
Chronicles) 2 vols. (London, 1928: Methuen; republished in Oosterhout, the Netherlands, in 1966 in one volume
by Anthropological Publications) I: 2. See also J.W. Gardner, “Blameless Ethiopians and Others,” Greece and
Rome 24 (1977): 185-193. In this connection it is appropriate to note that many of the early twentieth century
European observes and ethnographers assumed the original Arabians to have been black-skinned Hamites, part of a
supposed ‘black belt of mankind’ stretching from Africa to Melanesia. See e.g. C.G. Seligman, “The Physical
Characters of the Arabs,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 47
(1917): 214-237; Henry Field, “Ancient and Modern Inhabitants of Arabia,” The Open Court 46 (1932): 847-869;
Bertram Thomas, “Racial Origin of the Arabs,” in idem, The Arabs: The life-story of a People who have left
their deep impress on the world (London: Thorton Butterworth Ltd., 1937) 353-359.
34 On the Kushite presence in the Syro-Palestine region see Roger W. Anderson, Jr. “Zephaniah ben Cushi and the
Cush of Benjamin: Traces of Cushite Presence in Syria-Palestine,” in Steven W. Holloway and Lowell K. Handy
(edd.), The Picture is Broken: Memorial Essays for Gösta W. Ahlström (JSOTSupp 190; Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1995) 45-70. William Foxwell Albright documented a district or tribe called Kush in
southern Transjordan in the 19 th century BCE and a Kûàân-rÙm, “high Kushan” in Northern Syria in 13 th -12 th cent
BCE. Williams Foxwell Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press,
1956) 205 n. 49. On the Kushite presence in North Arabia see also Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 20: “The existence
of a Kushite people in the general area and references to it in the Bible have become well accepted in biblical
scholarship.” Even Arabic tradition records an Arabian Kush. Ibn al-Muj§wir in his T§rÊkh al-mustabßir records a
tradition according to which the southern Tih§ma was called Kush. G. Rex Smith, A Traveller in Thirteenth-
Century Arabia: Ibn al-Mujāwir’s Tārīkh al-mustabßir [London: Ashgate, 2008] 83 [Eng. 109]
35 On the Natufians of Palestine see C. Loring Brace et al, “The questionable contribution of the Neolithic and the
Bronze Age to European craniofacial form,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 103
(2006): 242-247; Margherita Mussi, “The Natufian of Palestine: The Biginnings of Agriculture in a
Palaeoethnological Perspective,” Origini 10 (1976) 89-107; F.J. Los, “The Prehistoric Ethnology of Palestine,”
Mankind Quarterly 7 (1966): 53-59; Sir Arthur Keith, “The Late Palaeolithi Inhabitants of Palestine,”
Proceedings of the First International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences, London
August 1-6 1932 (London: Oxford University Press, 1934) 46-47; idem, New Discoveries Relating to the
Antiquity of Man (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1931) 210-211.
36 As Roger W. Anderson, Jr. notes: “The Cushites were probably dark-skinned or burnt-faced people, ones whom
we would classify today as black.” Anderson, “Zephaniah ben Cushi,” 68. But Anderson wants to connect these
Syrian Kushites with the Nubian rulers of Egypt’s 25th Dynasty who had some influence in the area. On the other
hand Robert D. Haak has shown that this association is untenable. “ ‘Cush’ in Zephaniah,” in Holloway and
Handy, Picture is Broken, 238-251. On Kushites in the area see also Israel Eph’al, The Ancient Arabs:
Nomads on the Borders of the Fertile Crescent 9th – 5th Centuries B.C. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1982) 78-79.
The ancient Egyptians also depicted Syro-Palestinians as having “dark hair, brown complexions and Semitic
features”: Frank J. Yurco, “Were the Ancient Egyptians Black or White,” BAR 15 (Sept/Oct 1989): 26. In sum, in
Near Eastern, Greco-Roman, Biblical and post-biblical Jewish literatures, Kushites are noted for their black skin.
Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 113-114.
37 Retsö, Arabs in Antiquity, 119.
38 Arabian populations in fact have a much deeper relationship to African populations. The peninsula is, in terms of
geology and ecology, more appropriately seen as a part of Africa rather than Asia [Maurizio Tosi, “The Emerging
Picture of Prehistoric Arabia,” Annual Review of Anthropology 15 (1986): 461-490; D.T. Potts, The Arabian
Gulf in Antiquity, Vol. I: From Prehistoric to the Fall of the Achaemenid Empire (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1990) 9; Ali A. Mazrui, Euro-Jews and Afro-Arabs: The Great Semitic Divergence in
World History (Lanham: University Press of America, 2008) Chapter Seven]. The first hominines of the peninsula
were likely African migrants, Arabia being one of the first territories reached as they expanded out of Africa [Jeffrey
I. Rose and Michael D. Petraglia, “Tracking the Origin and Evolution of Human Populations in Arabia,” in
Petraglia and Rose, Evolution of Human Populations, 1; Michael D. Petraglia, “The Lower Paleolithic of the
7

Some Rabbinic literature suggests that on the eve of MuÈammad’s preaching in Mecca the
Arabs were still identified as Kushites.
The King of the Arabs put this question to R. Akiba: “I am black (kûšī) and my wife is
black (kûšīt), yet she gave birth to a white son. Shall I kill her for having played the harlot
while lying with me? (Num. R. IX.34) 39
While this midrash is probably completely legendary, it does give us a hint of Arabian
ethnography, or what the views of the 5th /6th century CE redactors of this text were regarding
Arabian ethnography at the time. 40 See also the Targum Shir ha-Shirim commenting on Song of
Songs 1:5 (“I am black but comely, O Daughters of Jerusalem, [black] as the tents of Qedar”):
When the people of the House of Israel made the Calf, their faces became black like the
sons of Kush who dwell in the tents of Qedar. 41
The Qedar were a powerful Arab tribe of Syria and North Arabia in the 7th century
BCE. 42 Here they are identified with Kush. They were not active at the time of Rabbi Akiba’s
5th /6th century CE redactors, but apparently their memory was still alive and was transferred to
the contemporary black Arabs of the time. “The blackness of the Arabian king,” Restö observes,
“is due to his dwelling in the land of the Qedar whose inhabitants are black, according to the
Song of Songs.” 43
Today the southern portion of the peninsula is home to this dark-skinned Arab, like the
Mahra, Qara, and Shahra tribes of Oman and Hadramawt, 44 which show some affinity to the
Arabian Peninsula: Occupations, Adaptations, and Dispersals,” Journal of World History 17 (June 2003): 173;
Norman M. Whalen and David E. Peace, “Early Mankind in Arabia,” ARAMCO World 43:4 (1992): 20, 23].
Arabian archaeology shows links with African materials [Jakub Rídl, Christopher M. Edens, and Viktor 1erny,
“Mitochondrial DNA Structure of Yemeni Population: Regional Differences and the Implications for Different
Migratory Contributions,” in Michael D. Petraglia and Jeffrey I. Rose (edd.), The Evolution of Human
Populations in Arabia: Paleoenvironments, Prehistory and Genetics (London and New York: Springer,
2009) 71; Whalen and Peace, “Early Mankind in Arabia,” 20, 23]. For further links between southern Arabia and
Africa see below n. 45. Craniofacial measurements in nearly 2000 recent and prehistoric crania from major
geographical areas of the Old World indicated that ancient West Asians and Africans resembled each other. See
Tsunehiko Hanihara, “Comparison of Craniofacial Features of Major Human Groups,” American Journal of
Physical Anthropology 99 (1996): 389-412. On the colonization of Western Asia from Africa see Ofer Bar-Yosef,
“Early colonizations and cultural continuities in the Lower Palaeolithic of western Asia,” in Michael D. Petraglia and
Ravi Korisettar (edd.), Early Human Behaviour in Global Context: The Rise and Diversity of the Lower
Palaeolithic Record (London: Routledge, 1998): 221-279.
39 Num. R. IX.34 on Numbers 5:19 (Soncino translation).
40 Retsö, Arabs in Antiquity, 530. On the rabbinic view of the Arab as dark-skinned see further Goldenberg,
Curse of Ham, 122-24.
41 The Targums of Canticles (The Aramaic Bible 17A), Translated, with a Critical Introduction, Apparatus, and
Notes by Philip S. Alexander (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1986) 81.
42 On Qedar see Jaroslav Stetkevych, MuÈammad and the Golden Bough: Reconstructing Arabian Myth
(Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1996) 68-77.
43 Restö, Arabs in Antiquity, 530.
44 On these tribes see J. E. Peterson, “Oman’s diverse society: Southern Oman,” The Middle East Journal 58
(Spring 2004): 254ff; Encyclopedia of Islam [Second Edition; hereafter EI 2 ] 6:81-84 s.v. Mahra by W.W. Müller;
Bertram Thomas, “Among Some Unknown Tribes of South Arabia,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological
Institute 59 (1929): 97-111; For photos of these black-skinned South Arabians see further Richard F. Nyrop (ed.),
The Yemens Country Studies (Washington D.C.: The American University, 1985): 5-7; D. Van der Meulen,
8

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).
9

A particularly instructive case is that of the Arab poet RabÊ# b. #$mir of the early
Umayyad period, better known as MiskÊn al-D§rimÊ (d. 90/708). MiskÊn was a distinguished
member of noble ancestry from the Banå D§rim from TamÊm of Iraq. 50 A pure Arab born to a
wealthy family, he was known for being “very dark, handsome, courageous, and eloquent”. 51
MiskÊn was famously black-skinned (al-aswad; al-sumra) and a pureblooded Arab. 52
10
At a certain
point in his life MiskÊn became a very religious ascetic. He gave up his wealth with its finery and
his poetry, and all but locked himself in a mosque in Medina. According to a well-known
anecdote, MiskÊn proposed to a woman of his tribe who rejected him because of both his
blackness and (now) poverty. She instead married a wealthy, fairer-skinned man who was not a
pure Arab. One day MiskÊn passed the two on the street and recited some verses to them,
boasting of his noble heritage and denigrating her spousal choice for his lack of the same. He said
before them:
I am MiskÊn to those who know me.
My complexion is dark brown (al-sumra),
the complexion of the Arabs. 53
Regarding her husband MiskÊn said: “the wealth of his house (samÊn al-bayt) is poverty with
respect to genealogy (mahjål al-nasab),” 54 i.e. his material wealth cannot equal MiskÊn’s pure Arab
genealogy, which her choice lacks. This anecdote articulates an important historical truth: pure
Arabs were black-skinned Arabs. 55 Secondly, and related to this point, fair-skinned Arabs were
considered of ignoble birth. 56
That a fair complexion was a distinctly non-Arab trait is equally well documented in the
Classical Arabic sources. Ibn Maníår affirms:
Red (al-Èamr§#) refers to non-Arabs due to their fair complexion which predominates
among them. And the Arabs used to say about the non-Arabs with whom white skin was
characteristic, such as the Romans, Persians, and their neighbors: ‘They are red-skinned
(al-Èamr§#)…” al-Èamr§# means the Persians and Romans…And the Arabs attribute white
skin to the slaves. 57
Ibn Maníår goes on to quote important commentary on MuÈammad’s famous claim, “I was sent
to the Whites (al-aÈmar) and the Blacks (al-aswad)’: “i.e., the Arabs and the non-Arabs, for the
predominant complexion of the Arabs is dark brown [al-sumra wa l-udma] and that of the non-
50 On him see AbÊ al-Faraj al-Ißfah§nÊ, Kit§b al-agh§nÊ (Beirut: D§r al-Thaq§h, 1955) 20: 167-178; EI 2 7:145 s.v.
MiskÊn al-D§rimÊ by Ch. Pellat.
51 EI 2 7:145 s.v. MiskÊn al-D§rimÊ by Ch. Pellat.
52 Al-Ißfah§nÊ, Kit§b al-agh§nÊ, 174.
53 Al-Ißfah§nÊ, Kit§b al-agh§nÊ, 174. On sumra see below.
54 Al-Ißfah§nÊ, Kit§b al-agh§nÊ, 175.
55 Vollers, “Rassenfarden,” 86, 88.
56 For another anecdote making the same point see Ibn AbÊ al-\adÊd, SharÈ nahj al-bal§ghah, ed. MuÈammad
AbÊ al-Fa∙l Ibr§hÊm (Cairo: #^s§ al-B§bÊ al-\alabÊ, 1959) V:55.
57 Ibn Maníår, Lis§n al-#arab, s.v. ﺮﻤﺣ IV: 210.

Arabs is white [al-baya∙ wa l-Èumra].” 58 The same point was made by several other authors. The
Syrian scholar and historian al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1348) observed:
Red (al-Èamr§#), in the speech of the people of the Hejaz, means white-complexioned (albay∙§#
bi-shuqra), and this is rare among them. Thus the meaning of the hadith ‘a red man as if
one of the slaves.’ The speaker is saying that this is the complexion of the Christian slaves
captured from Syria, Rome, and Persia (emphasis mine). 59
White skin in Arab society signaled slave-status. The seventh century Arab from the tribe
of Nakhāʾ ī, Shurayk b. #Abd All§h al-Qā∙ī, could claim that, because it was such a rare
occurrence “a fair-skinned Arab (#arabÊ asqar) is something inconceivable (al-muȧl).” 60 Al-JaÈií
even noted that it was common knowledge that Arabs were black and not white-skinned:
[The Blacks say]: ‘The Arabs are from us (wa minn§ al-#arab), not from the whites, because
their color is closer to ours. The Hindis complexion is more conspicuous than the Arabs,
they are black (wa hum min al-sud§n). Since the Prophet (s) said, ‘I was sent to the Whites (alaÈmar)
and the Blacks (al-aswad),’ it is common knowledge that the Arabs are not whiteskinned
(al-#arab laysat bi-Èumra). 61
Because white-skin was the mark of the Persian and Byzantine slaves, it was looked down
upon by the dark-skinned Arabs. Al-Mubarrad (d. 285/898), the leading figure in the Basran
grammatical tradition, claimed:
The Arabs used to take pride in their brown and black complexion (al-sumra wa al-saw§d)
and they had a distaste for a white and fair complexion (al-Èumra wa al-shaqra), and they
used to say that such was the complexion of the non-Arabs. 62
IV. MuÈammad’s Black Kinsfolk
True Arabs were dark-brown-/black-skinned, and fair skin characterized non-Arab slaves
in Arabian society: how could it be that the noble Arab prophet MuÈammad – who was accused
by his Meccan detractors of much, but never of being a non-Arab – could have been faircomplexioned?
If Arabs were characteristically dark-skinned, the reputedly most noble of Arab
58 Ibn Maníår, Lis§n al-#arab, s.v. ﺮﻤﺣ IV: 209; ibid. s.v. ﺮﻀﺧ IV: 245. See also Ibn AbÊ al-\adÊd, SharÈ nahj albal§ghah,
V: 54 who notes regarding this prophetic statement: “He alludes to Arabs by ‘the blacks’ and the non-
Arabs by ‘the reds’, for the Arabs call non-Arabs ‘red’ due to the fair-complexion that predominates among them.”
59 Al-DhahabÊ, Siyar a#l§m al-nubal§", edd. Shu#ayb al-Arna "åã and Husayn al-Asad (Beirut: Mu"assasat al-
Ris§lah, 1981) II:168.
60 Ibn #Abd Rabbih, al-#Iqd al-farīd (Cairo: Maãba#at al-Istiq§mah, 1940-) VIII:147.
61 Al-JaÈií, Fakhr al-såd§n #al§ al-bidan, 216 (Ar.); 22 (Eng.). Vollers (“Rassenfarben,” 87) notes also regarding this
claim of MuÈammad: “Hier muss al-aÈmar die Perser und al-aswad die Araber bezeichnen”. See further Ignaz
Goldziher, Muslim Studies (Muhammedanische Studien) 2 vols. (London, Allen & Unwin, 1967-), 1:268 who
notes that, in contrast to the Persians who are described as red or light-skinned (aÈmar) the Arabs call themselves
black.
62 Apud Ibn AbÊ al-\adÊd, SharÈ nahj al-bal§ghah, V:56.
11

tribes - MuÈammad’s own Quraysh tribe, and his H§shim clan in particular – were famous for
their black complexion and, thus, pure genealogy. 63
The Quraysh consisted of several sub-clans. One important Qurayshī sub-clan is the
Banå ’l-Mughīra of the larger Qurayshī sub-clan of the Banå Makhzåm. According to al-JaÈií:
“The clan of Mughīra is the Khu∙r of the tribe of Makhzåm.” 64 By “the Khu∙r” al-JaÈií means the
exceptionally dark or black-skinned (akh∙ar). 65 Thus, the second caliph ‘Umar’s mother,
Khaythama bt. H§shim b. al-Mughīra is described as black (såd§"). 66 Another significant sub-clan
is the Banå Zuhra, the tribe from which the prophet’s mother, Amīa bt. Wahb, hailed. Its
members were likewise noted for their dark-complexion. See for example the famous Sa#d b. Abī
Waqqās (d. 54/646), cousin of Amīa and uncle of MuÈammad. He is described as black-skinned
(§dam), 67 flat-nosed (afãas) and tall. 68 MuÈammad, it should be noted, was quite proud of his uncle
Sa#d. We are told that once MuÈammad was sitting with some of his companions and Sa#d
walked by. The prophet stopped and taunted: “That’s my uncle. Let any man show me his
uncle.” 69
The Qurayshī sub-clan Banå H§shim is MuÈammad’s own family (usra), his clan (rahã),
kinsfolk (§l), and relatives (dhawu l-qurb§). As the ahl al-bayt (family) of the Prophet the Banå
H§shim enjoyed special status, both during his life time and in the early post-prophetic
community.70F70 This special status accorded the Banå H§shim was related to their noted purity.71F71
Henry Lammens remarks that they are “généralement qualifies de ﻢﺪﺁ = couleur foncée,” but he
attributes this to the supposed fact that the Banå H§shim were “famille où dominait le sang
nègre”.72F72 This is unnecessary. The convergence of H§shimÊ blackness and genealogical nobility is
well represented by the lineage of #Abd al-Muããalib (d. 578), the Prophet’s paternal grandfather.
According to al-J§Èií:
The ten lordly sons of #Abd al-Muããalib were deep black (dalham) in color and big (∙ukhm).73F73
When Amir b. al-•ufayl saw them circumambulating (the Ka#ba) like dark camels, he said,
“With such men as these is the custody of the Ka#ba preserved.” #Abd All§h b. #Abb§s was
very black and tall. Those of Abå •§lib’s family, who are the most noble of men, are more
or less black (såd).”74F74
63 As Robert F. Spencer remarks: “It is said that the Quraysh explained their short stature and dark skin by the fact
that they always carefully adhered to endogamy.” Robert F. Spencer, “The Arabian Matriarchate: An Old
Controversy,” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 8 (Winter, 1952) 488.
64 Al-JāÈií, Fakhr al-såd§n #al§ al-bidan, 208 (Ar.); 18 (Eng.).
65 Al-JaÈií, Fakhr al-såd§n #al§ al-bidan, 207, 208 (Ar.); 17, 18 (Eng.): “Blacks according to the Arabs are al-khu∙r
because al-akh∙ar is black (li-anna al-akh∙ar aswad).”
66 Al-Mas’ådÊ, Muråj al-dhahab wa-ma#§din al-jawhar, ed. C. Barbier de Meynard, Les Prairies d’Or 9
vols. (Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1861-[1930]), IV: 192; EI 2 6:139 s.v. Makhzåm, Banå by M. Hinds.
67 On §dam see below n. 122.
68 Al-DhahabÊ, Siyar, I:97.
69 #Abd al-RaÈmān Rāfat al-Bāshā, ‘uwar min Èayāt al-‘aÈābah (Karachi: al-Maktabah al-GhafårÊya al-
#$ßimÊyah, 1996 ) 287.
70 See W.F. Madelung, “The ‘H§shimiyy§t’ of al-Kumayt and H§shmÊ Shi#ism,” Studia Islamica 70 (1989) 5-26.
71 Madelung, “The ‘H§shimiyy§t’,” 24.
72 Études sur le siècle des Omayyades (Beirut: Imprimerie Calholique, 1930) 44.
73 Dalham is an intense blackness, aswad mudlahimm. See Lis§n al-#arab, XII: 206 s.v. ﻢﻬﻟﺩ;Lane, Arabic-English
Lexicon, I: 908 s.v. ﻢﻬﻟﺩ.
74 Al-JaÈií, Fakhr al-såd§n #al§ al-bidan, I:209.
12

One of these ‘deep black and tall’ sons of #Abd al-Muããalib was #Abd All§h b. #Abd al-Muããalib,
the Prophet’s father. Another is al-#Abb§s, the Prophet’s uncle whose descendants founded the
#Abb§sid Dynasty in 132/750 CE. This was evidently a line of dark-skinned Arabs. 75 #Abd All§h
b. #Abb§s whom al-J§Èií described as “very black and tall,” was MuÈammad’s first cousin and
his son, #Alī b. #Abd All§h, was also black-skinned (§dam). 76 Of particular importance for us are
#Abd al-#Uzz§ (Abå Lahab), uncle and infamous enemy of the Prophet and Abå •§lib, supportive
uncle and father of the progenitor of the Shiite line of Imams. Abå Lahab’s importance for us
here rather lies with his great grandson, the seventh century CE Qurayshī poet, al-Fa∙l b. al-
#Abb§s. Al-Fa∙l was a cousin of the Prophet. Called al-Akh∙ar al-LahabÊ “The Flaming Black,” he
was well-known for his black complexion, handsome face and his genealogical purity, and
reportedly recited these famous words:
I am the black-skinned one (al-Akh∙ar). I am well-known.
My complexion is black. I am from the noble house of the Arabs. 77
Al-Fa∙l’s black-complexion (akh∙ar) was thus the visual mark of his pure, Qurayshī
background. 78
Al-J§Èií noted that Abå •§lib’s family was “the most noble of men” and “more or less
black (såd).” This fact is further affirmed for Abå •§lib’s famous son, #Alī b. AbÊ •§lib (d.
40/661), the first cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet. #Alī b. AbÊ •§lib was a very black-skinned
Arab, described by his son Abå Ja#far MuÈammad as “an intensely black man (rajul §dam shadīd
al-udma) with big, heavy eyes, pot-bellied, bald, and kind of short.” 79 Many of #Alī’s descendents,
the sharÊfs/sayyids, were similarly described as black-skinned. 80 This ‘family blackness’ of Abå
•§lib is very significant for our discussion of the appearance of the Prophet because Abå •§lib’s
son Ja#far, known as al-H§shimÊ, “The H§shimite,” who is the elder brother of #Alī, is “one of
MuÈammad’s kinsmen who most closely resembled him.” 81 Indeed, MuÈammad himself is
reported to have said to his presumably black-skinned cousin: “You resemble me both in
appearance and character (ashbahta khalqÊ wa khuluqÊ).” 82
The representative of the Banå H§shim who is most instructive in this regard is
MuÈammad b. #Abd Allāh (d. 145/762), known also as al-Nafs al-Zakiyya (“The Pure Soul”). He
75 In 659/1261 a black-skinned man claiming to be a surviving member of the Banå "l-#Abb§s after the destruction of
Baghdad by the Mongols in 656/1258 was brought by a group of Iraqis to Cairo. He was given a ceremonious
welcome by the Seljuk sultan, al-£§hir Baybars, who had the chief judge make an official inquiry into his genealogy.
Once confirmed, Abå "l-Q§sim AÈmad b. al-£§hir MuÈammad was inaugurated as the first #Abb§sid ‘shadow’
caliph in Cairo, taking the throne-name “al-Mustanßir”. See AÈmad al-DardÊr, al-SharÈ al-kabÊr, 4 vols. (Beirut:
D§r al-Fikr, n.d.) IV:409 (on the margin of MuÈammad al-DasåqÊ, \§shÊyat al-dasåqÊ #al§ al-sharÈ al-kabÊr,
4 vols. [Beirut: D§r al-Fikr, n.d.]); EI 2 VII:729 s.v. al-Mustanßir (II) by P.M. Holt.
76 Al-Dhahabī, Siyar,V:253.
77 Ibn Maníår, Lis§n al-#arab, s.v. ﺮﻀﺧﺍ IV:245f; al-MawardÊ, Ordinances, 190; Edward William Lane, Arabic-
English Lexicon (London: Williams & Norgate 1863) I: 756 s.v. ﺮﻀﺧ .
78 Ibn Maníår, Lis§n al-#arab, s.v. ﺮﻀﺧﺍ IV:245; Ibn AbÊ al-\adÊd, SharÈ nahj al-bal§ghah, V: 56.
79 Ibn Sa#d, al-•abaqāt al-kubrā III/i,17; Al-Suyåãī, Tārikh al-khulafā, ed. Jam§l MaÈmåd Mußãaf§ (Cairo:
D§r al-Fajr lil-Tur§th, 1999) 134.
80 Ibn al-‘abb§gh, Al-Fusål al-muhimmah fÊ ma#rifat aÈw§ l-a"ummah (Najaf: D§r al-Kutub al-Tij§rÊyah,
1950) e.g. 183 (Zayn al-#$bidÊn, asmar), 193 (MuÈammad al-B§qir, asmar mu#tadil), 205 (Ja#far al-‘§diq, §dam§), 214
(Mås§ al-K§íim, asmar #amÊq).
81 EI 2 II: 372 s.v. Dja#far b. AbÊ •§lib by L. Veccia Vaglieri.
82 ‘aÈÊÈ BukharÊ, b§b fa∙§"il aßȧb al-nabÊ, no. 47 (=Translation, V:47).
13

was a pure descendent of the Prophet himself through the latter’s daughter F§ãimah, wife of #AlÊ
b. AbÊ •§lib, a fact in which he took great pride. 83 This point is clearly evident in a letter he sent
to the #Abb§sid caliph Abå Ja#far al-Manßår (r. 136-158/754 – 775), against whom he rebelled in
145/762. Al-Nafs al-Zakiyya felt Abå Ja#far al-Manßår’s mixed lineage (his mother was a Berber),
among other things, disqualified him for leadership over the community. He wrote to the caliph:
You well know that no one has laid claim to this office who has a lineage, nobility, and
status like ours. By the nobility of our fathers, we are not the sons of the accursed, the
outcasts, or freedmen…I am at the very center of the Banå H§shim’s lines. My paternity is
purest among them, undiluted with non-Arab blood, and no concubines dispute over me. 84
What did this pure Arab descendent of the Prophet look like? “MuÈammad (Al-Nafs al-Zakiyya)
is described as tall and strong with very dark skin”. 85 According to al-•abarÊ:
MuÈammad (Al-Nafs al-Zakiyya) was black, exceedingly black, jet black (§dam shadÊd aludma
adlam) and huge. He was nicknamed “Tar Face” (al-q§rÊ) because of his black
complexion (udmatihi), such that Abå Ja#far used to call him “Charcoal Face” (almuÈammam).
86
MuÈammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, a QurayshÊ Arab whose pure lineage on both his paternal and
maternal sides put him “at the center” of the genealogical lines of the Banå H§shim, the
Prophet’s kinsfolk, was so black he was called ‘Tar face’ and ‘Charcoal face.’ This is undoubtedly
of significance for our discussion of the ethnicity and appearance of the Prophet himself. If
MuÈammad too was a pure QurayshÊ Arab of the Banå H§shim, equally noble on ‘both his
father’s and his mother’s side,’ 87 how could he have looked much different than al-Nafs al-
Zakiyya, or #AlÊ b. AbÊ •§lib, or his deep black father #Abd All§h b. #Abd al-Muããalib?
Excursus: ‘Black and Bearded’: What Did the Arabs of the Conquests Look Like?
In 638 the Persian ruler Yazdgird III pleaded to the T’ang emperor of China, T’ai-tsung,
for assistance against the Arabs who had invaded his realm. This assistance was refused. In 651
an Arab embassy arrived in China bearing gifts. There are two extant notices of this embassy in
Chinese literature: in the ninth-century administrative text, T’ung tien, which was presented to the
throne in 801 by Tu Yu; and in the T’ang History, the official dynastic history of the T’ang
83 Muhammad Qasim Zaman, “The Nature of MuÈammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya’s Mahdiship: A Study of Some
Reports in Ißbah§nÊ’s Maq§til,” Hamdard Islamicus 13 (1990): 60-61.
84 Quoted from al-•abarÊ, The History of al-•abarÊ, Vol. XXVIII: #Abb§sid Authority Affirmed, trans.
annot. Jane Dammen McAuliffe (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985) 167-68.
85 EI 2 7:389 s.v. MuÈammad b. #Abd Allāh by F. Buhl.
86 Al-•abarÊ, Ta"rÊkh al-rusul wa"l-mulåk, X:203.
87 According to Q§∙Ê #Iy§∙, al-Shif§, 92 (=al-Shifa, 43), MuÈammad “was from the best of the Banå H§shim, and
the stock and core of the Quraysh. He was from the noblest and mightiest of the Arabs, both on his paternal and
maternal side.” In fact, the Prophet could even claim to have been “the most Arab” of all his companions. Ibn
Hish§m, SÊrat Rasål All§h, ed. F. Wüstenfeld (Göttingen, 1858-59) 101, 106 (=The Life of Muhammad, trans.
A. Guillaume [London, 1955] 69, 72). See also Ibn KathÊr, al-SÊra al-Nabawiyya, trans. Dr. Trevor LeGassick,
The Life of the Prophet MuÈammad 4 vols. (London: Center for Muslim Contributions to Civilization;
Reading, UK: Garnet, 1998) I:130-141.
14

completed in 945. In these notices the Arabs (called there Ta-shih) encountered during the Yunghui
period (650-656) are described: “The Arab country was originally part of Persia. The men
have high noses, are black and bearded.” 88
Descriptions of the Arab conquerors of the West are similar. In the French epic poem
Song of Roland (wr. ca. 1100), Sir Roland’s Saracen enemies at the Battle of Roncevaux (778) are
described as “hordes blacker than the blackest ink – no shred of white on them except their
teeth.” 89 Roland further describes the Saracen commander:
at their head rides the Saracen…no worse criminal rides in their company, stained with the
marks of his crimes and great treasons, lacking faith in God, Saint Mary’s son. And he is
black, black as melted pitch… 90
In a miniature from Charles V’s Grandes chroniques de Franch (ca. 1370s) Roland’s Saracen
enemies are depicted black-skinned – though handsome – in contrast to the white faces of
Roland and his charging Christian knights. 91 While it is certainly true that these depictions
employ a symbolic convention that seeks to contrast the dark (sinful) from the (white) virtuous, 92
they no doubt reflect a historical reality as well. This is confirmed by details relating to the Arab
conquest of Egypt.
The conquest of Egypt by the Arab Muslims in 641 was in the main carried out by darkskinned
Arabs. 93 The second caliph who authorized the conquest, #Umar b. al-Khaãã§b (d.
23/644), was a QurayshÊ Arab with African ancestry. Not only was his mother from the
exceptionally dark Banå "l-MughÊra, but his paternal grandmother was an enslaved Ethiopian. 94
The caliph himself has been described as a bald, black-skinned man (rajul §dam) as if he were from
the Banå Sadås. 95 The troops were mainly Yemeni Arabs, who are noted for their dark
88 Robert G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish
and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (Princeton, NJ: The Darwin Press, INC., 1997): 245, 250.
89 The Song of Roland, trans. Frederick Goldin (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978) 99.
90Song of Roland, 107.
91 See Rita Lejeune and Jacques Stiennon, The Legend of Roland in the Middle Ages 2 vols. (New
York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), I: 288 and plate 41B; Strickland, Saracens, demons, & Jews, 179-180.
92 Strickland, Saracens, demons, & Jews, 169.
93 This seems also to be the case with regard to the conquest of Syria. The famous Khālid b. al-Walīd (d. 21/642),
who led the Syrian expedition, was from the exceptionally black Banå l- MughÊra (EI2 VI:138 s.v. Makhzåm by M.
Hinds). Many leaders at the decisive Battle of Yarmåk (14/636), besides Kh§lid, were black-skinned Arabs, like
#Amr b. al-#$ß and Abå l-A#war b. Sufy§n from the exceptionally black Banå Sulaym. Many SulaymÊs participated.
On Abå l-A#war and the black Sulaym see Michael Lecker, The Banå Sulaym: A Contribution to the Study of
Early Islam (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1989) 140, 242-245; EI2 IX:818 s.v. Sulaym by M. Lecker; al-JaÈií,
Fakhr al-såd§n #al§ al-bidan, 219 (Ar.), 23 (Eng).
94 MuÈammad b. HabÊb, Kit§b al-Muhabbar, ed. E. Lichtenstädler (Hyderabad, 1361/1942) 306.
95 Ibn Sa#d’s entry on this caliph, al-•abaqāt al-kubrā III/i, 234-235, presents disagreement over #Umar’s
appearance. It is reported on the authority of both Zirr b. \ubaysh and Hil§l b. #Abd All§h that he was blackskinned.
On the other hand, #Abd All§h b. #$mir and, surprisingly, the caliph’s famous son #Abd All§h reportedly
claimed that he was extremely white-complexioned (abya∙ amhaq ta#låhu Èumra). But #Abd All§h b. #Umar is himself
described as black-skinned (§dam; al-DhahabÊ, Siyar, III:209). According to his own black-skinned son (the caliph’s
black-skinned grandson) S§lim b. #Abd All§h, Ibn #Umar said regarding this family blackness: “We inherited our
black complexion (al-udma) from our maternal uncles.” Ibn Sa#d, al-•abaqāt al-kubrā III/i, 235. Ibn #Umar’s
mother was Zaynab b. Maí#ån from the Jumah clan of the Quraysh. On the blackness of this clan see al-DhahabÊ,
Siyar, I:160.
15

complexions. 96 Leading the troops into Egypt was the Arab general #Amr b. al-#Aß (d. 45/664)
who had previously commanded the Muslim forces in southern Palestine. He too had an
Ethiopian mother and QurashÊ father. 97 #Amr was sent 4000 reinforcements divided into four
detachments of 1000, each led by one of four commanders: al-Miqd§d b. al-Aswad, who was
black-skinned (§dam) and tall98 ; the black (aswad) and tall MuÈammad b. Maslama, an Arab from
the Banå Aws99 ; al-Zubayr b. al-Awwan, the cousin of the Prophet and nephew of KhadÊjah,
who was dark brown-skinned (asmar al-lawn) 100 ; and the famously black (aswad) #Ub§da b. al-
Ԥmit (d. 34/654). 101
A famous incident involving #Ub§da likely illustrates the overall complexion of the
Muslim conquest of Egypt. When Cyrus, the Byzantine governor of Egypt, sought negotiations
with #Amr b. al-#Aß in October 640, the latter deputed ten of his officers to negotiate. They were
led by #Ub§da. When the tall and black Ub§da was ushered into Cyrus’ presence, the governor
was terrified and exclaimed: “Take away that black man: I can have no discussion with him!”
The party insisted that #Ub§da was the wisest, best, and noblest among them and their appointed
leader, declaring that “though he is black he is the foremost among us in position, in precedence,
in intelligence and in wisdom, for blackness is not despised among us.” 102 #Ub§da himself then
replied to Cyrus: “There are a thousand blacks, as black as myself, among our companions. I and
they would be ready each to meet and fight a hundred enemies together.” 103 Benard Lewis
makes an important observation here: “#Ub§da is not African nor even of African descent but (as
the chroniclers are careful to point out) a pure and noble Arab on both sides.” 104 #Ub§da was an
eminent AnߧrÊ from the tribe Awf b. al-Khazraj, 105 in particular the clan Banå Ghanm b. Awf
96 Almut Nebel et al, “Genetic evidence for the Expansion of Arabian Tribes into the Southern Levant and North
Africa,” American Journal of Human Genetics 70 (2002): 1595; Kennedy, Great Arab Conquests, 147. On
the dark-complexion of southern Arabs see above n. 45 and Baron von Maltzan’s description of the southern Arab,
“Geography of Southern Arabia,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London 16 [1872]: 121:
“Their complexion is almost as black as that of the Abyssinians; their bodies are very finely formed, and with
slender, yet strong limbs; their faces are Semitic, noses generally aquiline, eyes full of fire, lips small, and mouths of
very diminutive proportions. They are generally thin, and never fat; they have little or no beard, their hair is long,
but curly, not woolly.”
97 Ibn Habib, Kit§b al-Muhabbar, 306; Bernard Lewis, “The Crows of the Arabs,” Critical Inquiry 12 (1985):
89 [art.=88-97].
98 Al-•abarÊ, Ta"rÊkh al-rusul wa"l-mulåk, XIII, 2312; Y.A. Talib, “The African Diaspora in Asia,” in I. Hrbek,
General History of Africa, III: Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century (Abridged Edition) (Paris:
UNESCO, 1992) 338.
99 Ibn ‘a#d, al-•abaqat al-kubr§, III/ii, 19; al-DhahabÊ, Siyar, II:371.
100 Al-•abarÊ, Ta"rÊkh al-rusul wa"l-mulåk, XIII, 2313. Contra Kennedy, Great Arab Conquests, 151 who
reports that he was pale-skinned. This latter claim is apparently based on the notice in Ibn #Abd al-\akam’s FutåÈ
Mißr, where al-Zubayr is described as abya∙. FutåÈ Mißr wa-l-Maghrib (Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaq§fah al-
DÊnåyah, 1995) 86. However, as demonstrated below, abya∙ as used of human complexions in the literature of this
period does not normally indicate ‘pale-skinned’; Èumra, ‘red’ does.
101 Ibn #Abd al-\akam, FutåÈ Mißr, ed. Charles C. Torrey (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922) 66;
MuÈammad b. #Abd All§h al-HimyarÊ, al-Raw∙ al-mu#aããar fÊ khabar al-aqã§r (Beirut: Maktabat Lubn§n,
1975) 553; Hitti, History of the Arabs, 163.
102 Ibn #Abd al-\akam, FutåÈ Mißr (Torrey) 66; Bernard Lewis, Race and Color in Islam (New York: Harper &
Row, 1979)10; Alfred Butler, The Arab Invasion of Egypt and the Last Years of Roman Domination (New
York: A&B Publishers, 1992 [1902]) 257.
103 Ibn #Abd al-\akam, FutåÈ Mißr (Torrey) 66.
104 Lewis, Race and Color, 10; idem, Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry (New
York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990) 26.
105 Ibn Hibb§n, Mash§hÊr #ulam§" al-amߧr (Beirut: D§r al-Kutub al-#Ilmiyah, 1995) 66.
16

. al-Khazraj, 106 thus a pure, very black-skinned Arab. The thousand fellow blacks, possibly the
detachment of which he was commander, were no doubt black Arabs like him. 107
Patricia Crone recently raised the question: What did the Bedouin of the Arab conquests
look like? “(H)ow should we,” she queried, “tell a filmmaker who wanted to screen the story of
the Arab conquests to depict the conquerors?” 108 A good question, though her focus was
exclusively on the dress of the conquerors. However, the cumulative evidence suggests that they
did not resemble the cast of Moustapha Akkad’s 1976 film, The Message. 109 Rather, in the context
of our discussion, K. Vollers observation in 1910 is relevant to Crone’s question:
So werden die Ausdrücke grün (akh∙ar) und Schwarz (aswad) oft identisch gebraucht. Die
khu∙ra (von akh∙ar) wird neben der sumra (von asmar) als die herrschende Farbe der
eigentlichen Beduinen genannt; ebenso heissen die Araber…aswad, Schwarz, im Gegensatz
zu den Persern (aÈmar). 110
Thus, when “The chansons de gestes routinely mention the blackness of Saracen skin,” 111 this does
indeed have “support objectif et historique,” and is not simply because the Saracens were
considered “méchants et maudits.” 112
V. The Myth of the Swarthy Whites
According to Arnold Toynbee in his tour d’force A Study of History, the Arabs of the
Umayyad period identified themselves as ‘the swarthy people’ in contrast to their Persian and
Turkish subjects whom they identified as ‘the ruddy people’. But he assures us that both are but
“two shades of white,” similar to the common blond/brunet distinction. 113 While somewhat
critical of Toynbee, Bernard Lewis shares and develops this idea of the Arabs as a group of tawny
Noting that Classical Arabic color terminology often carries different significances than
whites. 114
106 KhalÊl b. Aybak ‘afadÊ, Kit§b al-wafÊ bi-"l-wafay§t, ed. Helmut Ritter (Istanbul: Maãba#at al-dawlah, 1931-)
XVI: 618-619; Al-•abarÊ, The History of Al-•abarÊ, Vol. VI: MuÈammad at Mecca (trans. W. Montgomery
Watt and M.V. McDonald (Albany: SUNY Press, 1988) 126.
107 Contra Daniel Pipes, “Black Soldiers in Early Muslim Armies,” International Journal of African Historical
Studies 13 (1980) 87 who had to assume that, even though #Ub§da was a black Arab, the others must be African
because he felt it unlikely that Black Arabs “would band together”. There is nothing to commend this argument
which is, as Lewis remarks (Race and Slavery, 112 n. 14) “not supported by any other evidence in the rich Arabic
historiography dealing with this period.”
108 Patricia Crone, “’Barefoot and Naked’: What Did the Bedouin of the Arab Conquests Look Like?” Muqarnas
25 (2008): 1.
109 Freek L. Bakker (The Challenge of the Silver Screen: An Analysis of the Cinematic Portraits of Jesus,
Rama, Buddha and Muhammad [Leiden: Boston, 2009] Chapter Five; idem, “The Image of Muhammad in
The Message, the First and Only Feature Film about the Prophet of Islam,” Islam and Christian-Muslim
Relations 17 [2006]: 77-92) noted the film’s fidelity to Muslim tradition, but Anthony Quinn’s lead character,
Hamza, is in Muslim tradition one of the deep black (dalham) sons of #Abd al-Muããalib, MuÈammad’s paternal
grandfather. Similarly, MuÈammad’s adopted son Zayd b. H§ritha, who was a short, flat-nosed and very blackskinned
(§dam shadÊd al-udma) Arab, was well-played by the no doubt visually incongruous British actor Damien
Thomas. On Zayd see below.
110 Vollers, “Rassenfarben,” 86.
111 Strickland, Saracens, demons, & Jews, 168.
112 Contra Bancourt, Les Musulmans, I:58.
113 Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, vol. 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1939) 266.
114 Lewis, Race and Slavery, 19, 22.
17

our own – the former being more concerned with brightness, intensity, and shade than with hue
– Lewis suggests that the Arab self-description as ‘black’ is only relative and does not mean blackskinned;
such terms as aswad, sumra, §dam and akh∙ar, all indicating a dark brown or black color,
really signifies ‘swarthy’ when used by the Arabs of themselves in the Classical Arabic literature.
Normal for the Arabs of the peninsula was a light brown or olive complexion. 115 They were
certainly less dark than Africans. 116 Indeed, the conquered natives of Spain, Greece and other
Mediterranean peoples were only “of somewhat lighter skin than the Arabs.” 117 These ‘black’
Arabs and ‘red’ Persians were in fact so similar in complexion, Lewis proposes, that the son of an
Arab father and Persian mother would not look much different from the son of two Arab
parents. 118
A closer look at the relevant references in the Arabic literature indicates that the above is
a misreading. #Ub§da b. al-‘§mit, whom Lewis describes as swarthy, was in fact so black he
struck terror in the heart of his poor Byzantine negotiating partner. 119 There can be no question
of #Ub§da’s appearance being that of a nicely tanned white; on the contrary, his black-skin was
(terrifyingly) real. Similarly, #Abd al-Muããalib’s ten sons – including MuÈammad’s father #Abd
All§h and his important uncles Abå •§lib, Hamza and al-#Abb§s – were not swarthy, according
to al-JaÈií, but a deep black, dalham. #AlÊ b. AbÊ •§lib was intensely black, §dam shadÊd al-udma, 120
not swarthy. 121 In fact, #AlÊ would have been about the same complexion as Bil§l, often said to be
the first ‘black Muslim’; he too was §dam shadÊd al-udma. 122 Lewis’s proposition is thus turned on
its head: the son of two Arabs (i.e. #AlÊ) looks little different from the son of an Arab and an
African (i.e. Bil§l), rather than an Arab and a Persian.
This myth of Arabian swarthy whites has informed some translations of the literature,
sometimes with strange results. Notable in this regard is Jane Dammen McAuliffe’s translation of
al-•abarÊ’s description of MuÈammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya. While al-•abarÊ describes the Imam as
so excessively black (§dam shadÊd al-udma adlam) that he was called “Tar Face” (al-q§rÊ) and
“Charcoal Face” (al-muÈammam), 123 McAuliffe renders this passage thusly: “MuÈammad was very
swarthy-his complexion almost black”. 124 The distance between al-•abarÊ’s “excessively black”
and McAuliffe’s “almost black” is significant and should be noted. Puzzling too is David Powers’
description of Zayd b. \§ritha (d. 8/629), the Prophet’s adopted son. According to Powers,
“Zayd was short, his nose was flat and wide, and his skin was white or tawny colored.” 125 Yet, the
115 Lewis, Race and Slavery, 22.
116 Bernard Lewis, “The Crows of the Arabs,” Critical Inquiry 12 (1985) 88.
117 Lewis, Race and Slavery, 22.
118 Lewis, Race and Slavery, 40.
119 Ibn #Abd al-\aham, FutåÈ mißr (Torrey), 66; Lewis, Race and Slavery, 26, 27; Butler, Arab Invasion, 257.
120 Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, I:37 s.v. ﻡﺩﺍ suggests that §dam means primarily ‘tawny’, and secondarily darkcomplexioned.
However, according to Ibn Maníår’s entry, when used of human complexions (rather than that of
camels, for instance) §dam/udma signifies an excessively dark brown, al-sumra al-shadÊd and it contains a “dose of
blackness (shurbatun min saw§d): Lis§n al-#arab, s.v. ﻡﺩﺍ XII:11. Linguist al-Tha#labÊ (d. 1036), Fiqh al-lugha (Beirut
and London: D§r al-Kit§b al-ArabÊ, 2006) 82 likewise notes that §dam’s blackness exceeds that of sumra. See further
Lammens Études, 44.
121 Philip K. Hitti’s description: History of the Arabs, 10th edition (London: Macmillan Education Ltd, 1970)
183.
122 Bal§dhurÊ, Ans§b al-ashr§f, ed. MuÈammad \amÊd All§h (Cairo: D§r al-Ma#§rif, 1987) I:193. On Bil§l see
further EI2 I:1215 s.v. Bil§l b. Rab§È by W. #Arafat.
123 Al-•abarÊ, Ta"rÊkh al-rusul wa"l-mulåk, X:203.
124 History of al-•abarÊ, XXVIII:160.
125 Powers, MuÈammad is Not the Father, 25.
18

sources Powers cites are unanimous in describing Zayd as intensely black-skinned, §dam shadÊd aludma:
126 he too would have looked like Bil§l in complexion. Neither Bil§l nor Zayd were ‘tawny’:
the Arabic indicates that they were intensely dark. It is the case that one of Powers’ sources, Ibn
#As§kir (d. 571/1175), reports an unattributed alternative view according to which Zayd was
intensely white (shadÊd al-bay§∙), while it was his son Us§ma who was black (aswad), born as he was
to an Ethiopian mother. 127 But this “alternative view” is clearly secondary; neither Ibn Sa#d, al-
•abarÊ or Bal§dhurÊ report it. Because of his short stature, black skin and flat nose Zayd has
occasionally been described as “a negro,” 128 but he was a true Arab Bedouin (a#r§bÊ) from the
Banå Kalb. 129
Two reports found in the Arabic literature clarify the Arab self-description. The first
concerns the Arab linguist and genealogist al-\asan b. AÈmad (d. 436/1044-45), better known
as al-Aswad al-Ghandaj§nÊ, “the black-skinned man from Ghandaj§n.” He was also known as al-
A#r§bÊ, the Arab, and it is said that he was excessively proud of his Arab heritage, particularly the
dark skin (al-sumra) of the Arabs. 130 The latter was so important to al-\asan, in fact, that he
would not only apply tar to his skin and frequently sit in the very hot sun of Ghandaj§n to
blacken his own complexion, but would also throw his son in oil and have him sit in the sun so
that his complexion would be dark brown like the Arabs. The poor boy died from this. 131 It is
certainly a stretch to imagine that the goal of such extreme measures was a soft olive-toned tan!
Secondly, Abå’l-Faraj al-Ißfah§nÊ reports the story of the pitch-black (adlam) Arab poet al-
Sayyid al-\imyarÊ (d. 173/789). We are told that al-Sayyid used to carouse with the young men
of the camp, one of whom was as dark as he. This one, with his thick nose and lips, had a general
Negroid appearance (muzannaj). Al-Sayyid had foul-smelling armpits and as the two pitch-black
Arabs were jesting together one day, al-Sayyid said: “You are a ZanjÊ in your nose and lips!” to
which the youth replied: “And you are a ZanjÊ in your color and armpits!” 132 Notice that it is the
youth with the Negroid appearance that points out the Negroid complexion of al-Sayyid. This
anecdote challenges Lewis’s assumption of a chromatic difference between ‘black’ Arabs and
black Africans. 133 As we shall see, the difference between the two highlighted in the Arabic
literature is frequently one of luminosity, not chromaticity. 134
126 Ibn ‘a#d, al-•abaqat al-kubr§, III/i, 30; Bal§dhurÊ, Ans§b al-ashr§f, I:470; Al-•abarÊ, Ta"rÊkh al-rusul
wa"l-mulåk, XIII: 2301 (=The History of al-•abarÊ, Volume XXXIX: Biographies of the Prophet’s
Companions and Their Successors, trans. and annot. Ella Landau-Tasseron [Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1985] 10); Ibn #As§kir, Ta"rÊkh madÊnat Dimashq, ed. #Umar Ghar§mah #AmrawÊ (Beirut: D§r al-
Fikr, 1995) XIV:351. See also Ibn al-Jawzī, Kitāb tanwīr al-ghabash fī fa∙l ‘l-sūdān wa’l-Èabash, ed. and
trns. by Imran Hamza Alawiye, “Ibn al-Jawzī’s Apologia on Behalf of the Black People and their status in Islam: A
Critical Editon and Translation of Kitāb tanwīr al-ghabash fī fa∙l ‘l-sūdān wa’l-Èabash,” (PhD. Dissertation, University of
London, 1985) 298 [Ar.]; 132 [Eng.]; Khalid Muhammad Khalid, Men Around the Messenger (New Revised
Edition; Kuala Lumpur, 2005) 232.
127 Ibn #As§kir, Ta"rÊkh madÊnat Dimashq, XIV:351.
128 E.g. J.A. Rogers, World’s Great Men of Color 2 vols. (New York: Collier Books, 1996 [1973]) II: 539-40;
idem, Sex and Race: Negro-Caucasian Mixing in All Ages and All Lands (St. Petersburg, Fl: Helga M.
Rogers, 1967; 9th edition) 96; Vasudeo B. Mehto, “If Europe had been Muslimised,” Islamic Review 2 (1932):
220.
129 Ibn #As§kir, Ta"rÊkh madÊnat Dimashq, XIV:349-50.
130 #AlÊ b. Yåsuf al-QifãÊ, Inbah al-ruw§h #al§ anb§h al-nuȧh (Cairo, 1973) 168-169.
131 Al-QifãÊ, Inbah al-ruw§h, 169; Y§qåt b. #Abd All§h al-HamawÊ, Kit§b irsh§d al-arÊb il§ ma#rifat al-adÊb,
ed. D.S. Margoliouth (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1910) III/i, 22-23.
132 Abå’l-Faraj al-Ißfah§nÊ, Kit§b al-Agh§nÊ, 20 vols. (Bål§q, 1285/1868-69) VII:20.
133 Lewis in fact cites this anecdote in his study of race in Islam: Lewis, Race and Slavery, 92.
134 See below.
19

VI. MuÈammad the Black Arab?
We have every a priori reason to expect MuÈammad, as an Arab, to have been darkcomplexioned.
A fair-skinned MuÈammad in seventh-century Hejaz would have invoked
criticisms and charges of being a non-Arab. When we examine the Classical Arabic literature,
our expectations of a dark-skinned MuÈammad are in fact not disappointed. Al-TirmidhÊ (d.
279/892) in his J§mi# al-‘aÈÊÈ reports on the authority of the famous Companion of the
Prophet, An§s b. M§lik:
The Messenger of Allah was of medium stature, neither tall nor short, [with] a beautiful,
dark brown-complexioned body (Èasan al-jism asmar al-lawn). His hair was neither curly nor
completely straight and when he walked he leant forward. 135
Ibn Sa#d (d. 230/845) reports this and a similar description of MuÈammad on the authority of
Ibn #Abbās:
YazÊd al-F§risi said: I saw the Messenger of God (s) in a dream during the time Ibn #Abbās
[was governor] over Basra. I said to Ibn #Abbās: “I saw the Messenger of Allah (s) in a
dream.” Ibn #Abbās said: “Verily, the Messenger used to say, ‘Satan cannot assume my
form, so he who saw me in a dream, surely had a vision of me.’ Can you describe to me
what you saw?” [YazÊd] said: “Yes, I [will] describe [him]. He was a man between two
men. His body and flesh were brown and blemish-free with a sheen (asmar il§ al-bay§∙), 136
smiling, eyes with collyrium, features of his face beautiful. His beard was thick from this
end to that, and (the man) pointed to his two temples with his hands. It was so thick that it
covered his neck….” Thereupon Ibn #Abbās said: “Had you seen him while awake, you
could not have described him better than this.” 137
Like the report on the authority of An§s, MuÈammad is here described as brown-skinned, asmar.
The normal connotation of this term is a pretty standard dark brown, 138 as evidenced by other
formations from the same root: samar “darkness, night”; al-g§rra al-samr§ “the black continent
(Africa)” 139 . In the context of human complexions sumra /asmar has been associated with khu∙ra,
§dam, aswad, i.e. black. 140 However, ‘black’ too has various connotations. There were several
135 Sunan al-TirmidhÊ (Hims: Maktabat D§r al-Da#wah, 1965-) VI:69 no. 1754; Al-TirmidhÊ, al-Sham§"il al-
NabÊ, no. 2. This or a related report is found as well in Ibn Sa#d, Kit§b al-ãabaq§t al-kabÊr, I/i, 123 (Ar.); 488
(Eng); AÈmad b. \anbal, Musnad (Riyad: Bayt al-Afk§r al-DawlÊyah, 1998) III: 969 no. 13854; al-BayhaqÊ,
Dal§"il al-nubuwwah, I:203; Ibn KathÊr, al-Bid§yah wa-"l-Nih§yah, VI: 13.
136 On al-bay§∙ see below.
137 Ibn Sa#d, Kit§b al-ãabaq§t al-kabÊr, I/i,125 (Ar.); 492 (Eng).
138 Vollers, “Rassenfarben,” 88.
139 J M. Cowan (ed.), Hans Wehr Arabic-English Dictionary 4 th edition (Ithica: Spoken Language Services,
Inc., 1994) 500 s.v. ﺮﻤﺳ.
140 Ibn Maníår, Lis§n al-#arab, s.v. ﺮﻀﺧ IV: 245; s.v. ﺮﻤﺳ IV:376: “al-udma is al-sumra, and al-§dam among people
in al-asmar.” See also Ibn AbÊ al-\adÊd, SharÈ nahj al-bal§ghah, V:56. Lane’s note, Lexicon, I: 1425 s.v. ﺮﻤﺳ :
“tawny…like the various hues of wheat” does not accurately capture the chromatic implications of this term. See
also Hidayet Hosain’s translation of Anas b. M§lik’s report as found in TirmidhÊ’s al-Sham§"il (#2): “his
complexion was tawny”: Hidayet Hosain, “Translation of Ash-Shama’il of Tirmizi,” Islamic Culture 7 (1933):
397. Vollers’ “dunkle Bräune” is more accurate: “Rassenfarben,” 88.
20

shades or degrees of ‘black’ in Classical Arabic: Èumma, aswad, akh∙ar, §dam (deep black), asÈam,
jawn, f§Èim (coal black), ȧlik (pitch black), and more. 141 Linguistic scholar Abå Manßår al-
Tha#labÊ (d. 427/1036), enumerating the different “classifications of human blackness (fÊ tartÊb
saw§d al-ins§n),” explains:
When his maximum [blackness] (al§hu) is less than sawad (black), then he is asmar (brown). If
his blackness is greater with yellow enhancing it then he is aßham. If his blackness exceeds
al-sumra then he is §dam. If it exceeds that, then it is asÈam. If his blackness is intense, then
he is adlam. 142
This suggests a hierarchy of intensifying blackness: asmar / sumra → sawad/§dam →
aßham → asÈam → adlam. It also implies that, while at the bottom of the hierarchy, asmar / sumra
still falls within the category ‘black’. Ibn Maníår reports that “al-sumra [is] a degree between
white (al-bay§∙) and black (al-aswad), and it is that in the context of human complexions, camels,
etc.” 143 According to Ibn AthÊr, al-sumra’s ‘blackness’ predominates over its ‘whiteness’ (al-sumra
alladhÊ yaghlibu saw§duhu #al§ bay§∙ihi ), 144 and al-Taft§z§nÊ (d. 792/1390) reports in his al-
TahdhÊd: ‘al-sumra…is a color inclining to a faint blackness (sawadin khafiyin ), as in the description
of the Prophet: he was brown complexioned (k§na asmar al-lawn)…” 145 Asmar/sumra is therefore a
(dark) brown complexion.
Al-TirmidhÊ also reports from An§s b. M§lik:
The Messenger of Allah (s) was neither tall, such that he would stand out, nor was he short.
He was not albino-white (al-abya∙ al-amhaq), nor was he deep black (§dam). His hair was
neither very curly nor completely straight. Allah commissioned him towards the end of his
fortieth year. He remained in Mecca for ten years and in Medina for ten years. Allah
caused him to pass away at the turn of his sixtieth year and there was not found on his
head and beard [as much as] twenty white hairs. 146
This report does not necessarily stand in contradiction to An§s’ report according to which the
Prophet was brown-skinned, 147 because asmar is not necessarily §dam. 148 According to al-
Tha#labÊ’s classification, §dam is a more excessive blackness than asmar. 149 What would be denied
here is that MuÈammad was one of the excessively black Arabs, like the Banå Sulaym maybe. 150
141 For more ‘blacks’ see al-Tha#labÊ, Fiqh al-lugha, 81.
142 al-Tha#labÊ, Fiqh al-lugha, 82.
143 Ibn Maníår, Lis§n al-#arab, s.v. ﺮﻤﺳ IV:376.
144 Ibn Maníår, Lis§n al-#arab, s.v. ﺮﻤﺳ IV:376.
145 Ibn Maníår, Lis§n al-#arab, s.v. ﺮﻤﺳ IV:376.
146 Sunan al-TirmidhÊ, IX:244 no. 3627; Al-TirmidhÊ, al-Sham§"il al-NabÊ, no. 1; al-Bukh§rÊ, ‘aÈÊÈ, b§b ßifat alnabÊ,
no. 747, 748; Ibn Sa#d, Kit§b al-ãabaq§t al-kabÊr, I/i, 123 (Ar.); 488 (Eng).
147 Q§wÊ al-HarawÊ, Kit§b jam# al-was§"il, 14.
148 Contra M§hir Y§sin Fahl and Bashsh§r #Aww§d Ma#råf, comments in al-TirmidhÊ, al-Sham§"il al-NabÊ, 33 n. 4;
#Abd al-Ra#åf b. T§j al-#$rifÊn al-Munawi, al-Raw∙ al-b§sim fÊ Sham§"il al-Mußtaf§ AbÊ al-Q§sim
(Damascus: D§r al-Bash§"ir, 2000) 23, n. 2.
149 Ibn Maníår, Lis§n al-#arab, s.v. ﻡﺩﺍ XII:11: §dam/udma signifies an excessively dark brown, al-sumra al-shadÊd.
150 As pointed out by al-B§jårÊ (d. 1276/1860), Maw§hib al-ladunÊyah #al§ al-Sham§"il al-MuÈammadÊyah,
apud al-TirmidhÊ, al-Sham§"il al-MuÈammadÊyah, ed. MuÈammad #Aww§mah (Medina, 2001) 22 (al-manfÊy
innam§ huwa shiddat al-sumra). However, al-B§jårÊ’s claim that the intent of the affirmed al-sumra is really al-aÈmar is
unlikely. See below. On the Sulaym see above n. 94.
21

But An§s is also the reported source of a more widely known description of the Prophet which, at
first sight, seems to completely contradict all of the above.
While we were sitting with the Prophet in the mosque, a man came riding on a camel. He
made his camel kneel down in the mosque, tied its foreleg and then said: “Who amongst
you is MuÈammad?” At that time the Prophet was sitting amongst us (his companions)
leaning on his arm. We replied, “This white man (hadh§ l-rajul l-abya∙) reclining on his
arm.” 151
This description of MuÈammad as abya∙, white, is frequently encountered in the Arabic
literature. 152 What are the implications of this description and how does it relate, if at all, to
An§s’s other description of the Prophet as brown-skinned? In his study of Classical Arabic color
terminology Arabist Jeham Allam makes a relevant observation:
color terms often acquire, in certain fixed allocations, a range that goes beyond what they
normally possess, e.g., “white” in the expression “white coffee” refers to a deep shade of
brown…when referring to skin, an Arabic speaker may use [abya∙] (“white”) as a
euphemism for [aswad] (“black”). 153
Allam’s point is confirmed by the appropriate Classical Arabic/Islamic sources. Al-Dhahabī
affirmed:
When Arabs say, ‘so-and-so is white (abya∙),’ they mean a golden brown complexion with a
black appearance (al-hinãÊ al-lawn bi-Èilya sud§"). Like the complexion of the people of India,
brown and black (asmar wa §dam), i.e. a clear, refined blackness (sawad al-takrår).” 154
Abya∙ thus does not suggest a white complexion. Ibn Maníår affirmed the same:
The Arabs don’t say a man is white [or: “white man,” rajul abya∙] due to a white
complexion. Rather, whiteness [al-abya∙] with them means an external appearance that is
free from blemish [al-í§hir al-naqÊ min al-#uqåb]; when they mean a white complexion they
say ‘red’ (aÈmar)… when the Arabs say, ‘so-and-so is white (abya∙ - bay∙§#), they [only] mean
a noble character (al-karam fÊ l-akhl§q), not skin color. It is when they say ‘so-and-so is red’
(aÈmar - Èamr§#) that they mean white skin. And the Arabs attribute white skin to the
slaves. 155
151 al-Bukh§rÊ, ‘aÈÊÈ, kit§b #alim, b§b fa∙l #alim, # 63.
152 See above n. 9.
153 Jehan Allam, “A Sociolinguistic Study on the Use of Color Terminology in Egyptian Colloquial and Classical
Arabic,” in Zeinab Ibrahim, Nagwa Kassabgy and Sabiha Aydelott (edd.), Diversity in Language: Contrastive
Studies in English and Arabic Theoretical and Applied Linguistics (Cairo and New York: The American
University on Cairo Press, 2000) 78; Lewis, Race and Slavery, 22.
154 Al-DhahabÊ, Siyar, II:168.
155 Ibn Maníår, Lis§n al-#arab, s.v. ﺮﻤﺣ IV: 209, 210.
22

To speak of someone as white complexioned, like the Romans, Persians, Turks, etc., the Arabs
used the term aÈmar, red. 156 Abya∙ ‘white’ had a different connotation: it signified a blemish-free
black complexion with a sheen (thus the ‘golden-brown’ appearance). In other words, what we
call white today the Arabs called red, and what they called white often was what we would today
call black.
Further, as Goldenberg notes, ‘white’ in pre-modern Arabic was about luminosity, not
chromaticity. 157 Arab usage distinguished between whiteness related to redness or whiteskinnedness
(al-baya∙ al-mushrab bi-Èumra) and whiteness related to yellowness or luminance (albaya∙
al-mushrab bi-ßufra). The former (bi-Èumra) arises from the blood visible from within the body,
and the latter (bi-ßufra) arises from gloss and sheen (ßaq§la wa ßaf§#). 158 According to al-Tha#labÊ,
the whiteness that is praise-worthy is that which associates a person’s complexion “closer to
yellowness (ßufra), like the color of the moon and pearls, then he is azhar, luminous.” 159 Not
unexpectedly MuÈammad is described as luminous. “The Messenger of Allah was luminous of
complexion (azhar al-lawn).” 160 His face shone with resplendence like that of a full moon and his
azhar and abya∙ complexion had a luster (når) resembling that of a statue made of clear silver. 161
Indeed, according to one Companion under his cloths the Prophet was like the half-moon in
luminance. 162 Luminance, rather than a white complexion, is no doubt the significance of these
reports describing MuÈammad as abya∙. 163
In Classical Arabic there is no incompatibility between being black-skinned and being
luminous (azhar/abya∙). The verb, ißfarra, which in Modern Standard Arabic means “to become
yellow,” in Classical Arabic also meant “to become black.” 164 ‘ufra meant both “yellowness” and
“blackness.” 165 The same is true for human complexions. Ja#far al-‘§diq (d. 148/765), the sixth
Shiite Imam, had a black complexion (§dam§ l-lawn), 166 but like the Prophet was also described as
possessing a luminous face (azhar al-wajh). 167
156 Ibn Maníår, Lis§n al-#arab, s.v. ﺮﻤﺣ IV: 209: “al-aÈmar is a general white complexion (al-abya∙ muãlaqan).” See
further Goldziher, Muslim Studies, 1:268 and below.
157 Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 93.
158 al-B§jårÊ, Maw§hib al-ladunÊyah #al§ al-Sham§"il al-MuÈammadÊyah, apud al-TirmidhÊ, al-Sham§"il
al-MuÈammadÊyah, 22.
159 Al-Tha#labÊ, Fiqh al-lugha, 77.
160 Al-TirmidhÊ, Sham§"il al-nabÊ, no. 8; Ibn Sa#d, Kit§b al-ãabaq§t al-kabÊr, I/i:121, 123 (Ar.); 484, 488
(Eng.)
161 Al-TirmidhÊ, Sham§"il al-nabÊ, no. 8, 12; Ibn Sa#d, Kit§b al-ãabaq§t al-kabÊr, I/ii:121 (Ar.); 484 (Eng.)
162 Ibn Sa#d, Kit§b al-ãabaq§t al-kabÊr, I/i:127 (Ar.); 495 (Eng.)
163 Vollers, “Rassenfarben,” 90-91: “Weit mehr fällt ins Gewicht, dass der Prophet MuÈammad, der doch auch
körperlich der vollendetste Araber sein musste, so geschildert wird: von heller Hautfarbe, zwischen hellweiss und
bräunlich, von schwarzen Haar und sehr dunkeln Augen. Ebenso im \adÊth, wo der Beduine 4imâm ibn Tha‘laba
den Propheten in einem Kreise sucht und fragt, worauf er die Antwort erhält: ﺾﻴﺑﻷﺍ ﻞﺟﺮﻟﺍ ‘der weisse (helle) Mann
da,. Für unsern Zweck ist es einerlei, ob diese Scene historisch ist oder der Legende angehört; in beiden Fällen
gewinnen wir das Resultat, dass die Araber das Bedürfnis empfanden, den vollendetsten Mann ihres Volkes als hell
zu schildern.”
164 Allam, “Sociolinguistic Study,” 82.
165 Ibn Maníår, Lis§n al-#arab, s.v. ﺮﻔﺻ IV:244 “aßfar (“yellow”) is black”. See also Allam, “Sociolinguistic Study,”
82.
166 Ibn al-‘abb§gh, Al-Fusål, 205.
167 Ibn Sharhr§shåb, Man§qib $l AbÊ •§lib, 4 vols. (Qum: al-Maãba#ah al-#IlmÊyah [Tamma al-Kit§b], 1959) IV:
281.
23

lawn). 168 Yet, he too was azhar, luminous, except, we are told, in the high summer. The heat in his
region seems to have robbed him of his bodily sheen and luster, leaving him completely black
(tamÊm akh∙ar) and pitch black (ȧlik). 169 Al-JaÈií thus clarified the Arab use of such descriptions:
The Arabs boast of (their) black color. If it is said, ‘How can this be so, seeing that the
Arabs speak of someone as luminous (azhar), white (abya∙), and blazing white (agharr)?’ we
would answer: ‘They are not referring in this context to whiteness of skin (bay§∙ al-jilda), but
rather to nobility and purity of character. 170
These two descriptions of MuÈammad as (dark) brown (asmar) and as white (abya∙), are
therefore not in conflict: the latter would have the sense of sheen (al-ßaf§") and luster (al-lama#§n)
on the blemish-free asmar skin under the light of the sun. 171 An§s b. M§lik thus reportedly
affirmed that the Messenger of God “was luminous (azhar), not albino-white,” 172 and specified
further that “his (s) whiteness was related to (dark) brown, k§na abya∙ bay§∙ahu il§ al-asmar,” 173 thus
not related to aÈmar, white-complexioned. This means that, when not specifically qualified by the
phrase mushrab bi-Èumra, descriptions of MuÈammad’s complexion as abya∙ should probably be
read as ‘blemish-free and luminous black complexion.’
Excursus: Black Semites vs. Black Hamites
This tradition of black-skinned Arabs with a blemish-free and luminous complexion
throws some light (no pun intended) on a number of passages within the literature relating to
black Africans. Above we quoted a report found in al-•abarÊ’s Ta"rÊkh al-rusul wa"l-mulåk,
according to which God gave the Semites a The dark same complexion, is true of luminous Ja#far’s son, and Mås§ free of al-K§íim blemish (al- (d.
udma 183/799), wa l-bay§∙), the seventh while Imam. to the He Hamites was deep (i.e. Africans) brown (asmar he gave #amÊq) only or black-complexioned a dark complexion. (aswad For most al-
Hamites their dark complexion was not luminous and blemish-free. The distinguishing
characteristic between Arabs and Africans according to this formulation is not chromatic but
quality of complexion and absence or presence of a luster. A poet’s satirical reproach against the
black-skinned #Ubayd All§h, son of the Ethiopian Companion Abå Bakra, could claim regarding
Nubian blacks: “God put no light in their complexions!” 174 This is no doubt the context for this
much quoted hadith on the authority of Ibn Abb§s
An Abyssinian man came to the Prophet (s) [wanting] to ask him [something]. The
Prophet (s) said to him, ‘Ask whatever you wish.’ So he said: ‘O Apostle of God, you (pl.)
surpass us in appearance (al-ßåra) and complexion (al-alwan) and in prophethood. If I were
168 Ibn al-‘abb§gh, Al-Fusål, 213; AÈmad b. #AlÊ b. #Inabah, Kit§b #umdat al-ã§lib fÊ ans§b $l AbÊ •§lib
(Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaq§fah al-DÊnÊyah, 2001) 156.
169 Ibn Sharhr§shåb, Man§qib, IV:323.
170 Al-JaÈií, Fakhr al-såd§n #al§ al-bidan, 207 (Ar.); 17 (Eng.)
171 Q§wÊ al-HarawÊ, Kit§b jam# al-was§"il,17.
172 Quoted by al-Tha#labÊ, Fiqh al-lugha, 77.
173 al-BayhaqÊ, Dal§"il al-nubuwwah, I:204; Ibn KathÊr, al-Bid§yah wa-"l-nih§yah, VI: 13; Munawi, al-Raw∙
al-b§sim, 25. This is also the context in which we must understand the similar statement found in the Ibn #Abb§s
report cited above, that MuÈammad was asmar il§ al-bay§∙, “brown related to white,” which I translated above as
“brown and blemish-free with a sheen”. Contra al-B§jårÊ, Maw§hib al-ladunÊyah #al§ al-Sham§"il al-
MuÈammadÊyah, apud al-TirmidhÊ, al-Sham§"il al-MuÈammadÊyah, 22.
174 Bal§dhurÊ, Ans§b, I: 505.
24

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.
25

310/923). 185 Rounding out this quartet al-Bal§dhurÊ (d. 297/892) reports that the Prophet had a
shinning face (tala"lu") and a luminous complexion (azhar) or a white one (abya∙ al-lawn mushrab
Èumra), but he cites neither of the reports attributing a dark complexion. 186 In contrast, it is the
fair-complexioned MuÈammad that is conspicuously absent from the two ‘aÈÊÈ hadith
collections: in the chapter on the ‘Description of the Prophet’ the famed Persian traditionist al-
Bukh§rÊ (d. 256/870) cites only those reports describing MuÈammad as abya∙ and azhar, 187 as
does Muslim. 188 Without the qualifier mushrab bi-Èumra, these descriptions could refer to an Arab
prophet with a blemish-free and radiant black-complexion. 189
While no portraits of the Prophet dating to this period have been found, the mention of
such portraits in the literature is relevant. There is for example the famous story of the Meccan
Arabs (from the Banå Umayya!) who travel to the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (r. 610-641) in
an attempt to covert him to Islam. While there, the emperor is said to have pulled out for his
Meccan guests a cubed object with compartments, in each of which was a silk portrait of one of
the prophets from Adam to MuÈammad. When Heraclius pulls out a black silk cloth on which is
a white figure, the Arabs weep, for they recognize the portrait as that of MuÈammad, the
Messenger of God. 190 While the setting of this tale is the Byzantine realm during the lifetime of
the Prophet, the earliest version is found in al-DÊnawarÊ’s al-Akhb§r al-ãiw§l, completed
around 895. 191 By the tenth century this tale circulated among writers of every major literary
185 Al-•abarÊ doesn’t mention any of these reports, e.g., in his The History of al-•abarÊ, VI: MuÈammad at
Mecca (trans. W. Montgomery Watt and M.V. McDonald: Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988).
186 Al-Bal§dhurÊ, Ans§b, I:386-3396.
187 ‘aÈÊÈ BukharÊ, b§b ßifat al-nabÊ, nos. 744, 747.
188 ‘aÈÊÈ Muslim, b§b: k§na al-nabÊ (s) abya∙, malÊÈ al-wajh, apud al-NawawÊ, Minhaj sharÈ ‘aÈÊÈ Muslim, XV:
92-97 nos. 6025, 6026, 6033-6035.
189 The absence of the ruddy (aÈmar)-complexioned MuÈammad from the top three of the Six Books is worth
emphasizing further, an absence the most popular translations of these collections conceal. Thus in these the Prophet
is an abya∙ rajul, not a ‘white(-skinned) man’ (‘aÈÊÈ BukharÊ, III/1, no. 63 (=Translation, I:54); he was luminous
(azhar/abya∙), not ‘rosy’ or ‘white-complexioned’ (‘aÈÊÈ BukharÊ, LVI/22 nos. 744, 747 (=Translation, IV:486,
487); Muslim, ‘aÈÊÈ Muslim, apud al-NawawÊ, Minhaj XV, nos. 6026, 6035 and translation IV: 1250-1251 nos.
5778, 5786; Abå D§wåd, Sunan, V/xxxv, no. 4864 and translation). These collections report on the Prophet’s
exposed bay§∙, not white (aÈmar), leg, forearm, armpits, abdomen, and face (‘aÈÊÈ BukharÊ, LVI/22, no. 767
(=Translation, IV:493); VIII/12, no. 367 (=Translation, I:224); LXXXVI/15, no. 108 (=Translation, IX:89);
LXXXIX/41, no. 305 (=Translation, IX: 234-235), etc; XC/7, no. 342 (=Translation, IX: 259); LII/34, no. 90
(=Translation, IV:65; Muslim, ‘aÈÊÈ Muslim, apud al-NawawÊ, Minhaj V, no. 84; VI, no. 120 and translation
II/viii, no. 3325; III/xvii no. 4437; Abå D§wåd, Sunan, I/ii, nos. 899, 996; IV/xx, no. 3206 and translation). This
is quite remarkable. The only deviation from this clear privileging of azhar/abya∙ as the only legitimate descriptors of
MuÈammad’s complexion is a number of reports that describe the #ufra of his armpits (‘aÈÊÈ BukharÊ, XLVII/17,
no. 769 [=Translation, III:464]; LXXVIII/3, no. 631 [=Translation, VIII:411-412]; LXXXIX/24, no. 286
[=Translation, IX: 217-218]). Dr. MuÈammad MuÈsin Kh§n translates ‘the whiteness of his armpits’. But #ufra has
a different connotation than a white-complexion. The verb #afara means ‘to cover with dust’ and #afar/#ufar is dust.
#ufra is therefore dust-colored inclining to a dull white (see Lane, Lexicon, II:2090 s.v. ﺮﻔﻋ), but probably dustcovered
as well. The possibility that #ufra ibãayhi means here ‘his dusty armpits’ rather than ‘his white(-complexioned)
armpits’ is reinforced by a report on the authority of al-Bara’ b. ‘Azib who, as the Prophet was carrying earth on the
day of the battle of al-AÈz§b, saw dust (al-turab) covering the bay§∙ of MuÈammd’s abdomen ((‘aÈÊÈ BukharÊ,….).
White dust on a white complexion would not have been easily noticeable. However, dull white dust on a bay§∙ or
blemish-free black complexion would have been noticible when MuÈammad raised his hands high.
190 On this tradition and its appearance in Muslim literature see Oleg Grabar and Mika Naif, “The Story of Portraits
of the Prophet Muhammad,” Studia Islamica 96 (2003): 19-38+VI-IX.
191 AÈmad b. D§"åd al-DÊnawarÊ, al-Akhb§r al-ãiw§l, ed. #Abd al-Mu"nim AmÊn (Tehran, 1960) 18-19; Grabar
and Naif, “Story of Portraits of the Prophet,” 23-24.
26

genre. 192 It featured prominently in the Dal§"il al-nubuwwah, “Proofs of Prophethood,”
literature, 193 suggesting a growing popularity for a white-skinned MuÈammad.
This coincides with what Khalidi describes as the following age of the canonical SÊra,
during which the Prophet’s biography was subjected to critical assessment and pruned of its
objectionable or heretical materials, in sum reconstructed. The divergent material is specifically
addressed and that material that distracts from the grandiose image of the Prophet as the
community imagined it at the time is excluded. 194 This stage, which Khalidi dates to the
eleventh-twelfth centuries, introduces a reconstituted SÊra with a reconstructed image of
MuÈammad. 195 Representative of this stage of sÊra-writing is al-Q§∙Ê ‘Iy§∙ and his canonical al-
Shif§ bi-ta#rÊf Èuqåq al-Mußãaf§, “The Remedy Concerning the Determination of the Just
Merits of the Chosen (i.e. MuÈammad).” Al-Q§∙Ê ‘Iy§∙ addresses himself to the controversies of
his day regarding the Prophet and ‘remedies’ them. Along with clarifying the perfect qualities –
internal and external – of God’s apostle, the Q§∙Ê enumerates the judgments against those –
Muslim and non-Muslim – who affirm for him imperfections. For example, twice he reports the
judgment that “Anyone who says that the Prophet is black (aswad) should be killed.” The
Prophet, of course, was not black, and saying so disparages him and attributes to him what does
not befit him! 196 Clearly there were Muslims who were still claiming such, no doubt based on,
among other things, the description of MuÈammad as asmar, a description that does not figure in
the Q§∙Ê’s description of his Chosen. The Q§∙Ê found such talk disparaging to the Prophet, for
by his time and in his environment ‘blackness’ has clearly acquired a negative valuation.
But this is not the only conspicuous absence from the Q§∙Ê’s enumeration of the
Prophet’s perfect physical qualities. If al-Q§∙Ê’s MuÈammad was emphatically not black, he yet
was not unambiguously fair-skinned either. Al-Q§∙Ê never describes the Prophet as aÈmar nor
does he report those traditions that do. He doesn’t even use abya∙. Rather his Chosen of God had
a luminous complexion (azhar al-lawn), was bright (ablaj) with an illuminated body (anwara almajarrad)
and face that shinned like the sun and moon. 197 Al-Q§∙Ê’s decision to exclude abya∙ as a
‘just merit’ may be due to his recognition that the term, unqualified, indicates a black complexion
and for whatever reason he chose not to qualify it (or the Prophet) with aÈmar as will later become
standard. On the other hand it might be argued that, by this time luminosity and chromaticity
have converged (i.e. azhar = aÈmar), as will certainly be the case later, and thus the Q§∙Ê clearly
had a fair-skinned prophet in mind. Be that as it may, the exclusion of both aÈmar and abya∙ as
legitimate descriptors of the Prophet is notable.
By the seventeenth century commentators were going great exegetical distances to make
MuÈammad white-skinned. Al-Q§rÊ al-HarawÊ (d. 1605) even claimed that the description of the
Prophet as brown, asmar, intends to deny to MuÈammad any whiteness that does not involve a
192 Grabar and Naif, “Story of Portraits of the Prophet,” 27.
193 Al-BayhaqÊ, Dal§"il al-nubuwwah, I:384-391; Abå Nu#aym al-IsfahanÊ, Dal§"il al-nubuwwah, ed.
MuÈammad al-Qala"anji (Damascus, 1970) 55-64.
194 Khalidi, Images, 17-18, and Chapter VII.
195 Khalidi, Images, 176.
196 Al-Q§∙Ê ‘Iy§∙, al-Shif§, 540, 558 (=Muhammad: Messenger of Allah, 375, 387). See also Q§wÊ al-HarawÊ,
Kit§b jam# al-was§"il, 56.
197 Al-Q§∙Ê ‘Iy§∙, al-Shif§, 77-80, 172, 173. In her popular translation of this text and undoubtedly under the
influence of the popular iconography, Bewley inappropriately renders ablaj (bright, clear) and azhar al-lawn as ‘fair’
and ‘very fair’ skinned, respectively: Muhammad: Messenger of Allah,34,80.
27

fair-complexion! 198 Rather, he insisted that MuÈammad’s whiteness was a luminance, yes; but a
white complexion as well (bal k§na baya∙ahu nåran mushraban bi-Èumratan ). 199 Al-Munawi (d. 1621)
insisted on the same:
concerning [MuÈammad’s] whiteness (bay§∙) due to light (al-når), illumination (i∙§"a), and
brilliant gloss (al-i∙§"a al-s§ãi#), this does not deny that he was (also) white-skinned (mashrab bi-
Èumra). 200
Considering that a ‘fair-skinned Arab’ is oxymoronic and a noble H§shimÊ in particular
by definition is black-skinned, how do we account for the development and, more importantly,
the general acceptance in the pre-modern and modern Muslim world of this impossible image of a
fair-skinned MuÈammad? Any answer to this question could only be speculative. However, we
suggest that an appropriate context in which to understand this development is the Kulturkampf
that pitted Persian ethno-cultural sentiments against Arab sentiments, a conflict the Arabs all but
linguistically lost. This development contributed to a general ‘de-arabizing’ of Islamic tradition,
and eventually a de-arabizing of Islam’s prophet.
VII. De-Arabizing Islam and its Prophet
The Egyptian polymath Jal§l al-DÊn al-SuyåãÊ (d. 991/1583), in his T§rÊkh al-Khulaf§",
reports a variant of a very suggestive hadith:
[The Messenger of God said:] “I dreamed that I drove before me some black sheep, then I
drove after them some white sheep, so that the black could not be seen among them.” And
Abå Bakr said: “O apostle of God, as for the black sheep, they signified the Arabs who shall
embrace the faith and increase in numbers, and the white sheep are the non-Arabs (#ajam)
who shall be converted until the Arabs shall not be seen among them by reason of their
numbers.” The apostle of God replied, “likewise did the angel interpret it this morning.” 201
This tradition could illustrate the prophetic powers of MuÈammad, but such a post eventum
prophecy more likely is a response to an historical development that had taken place long after
his death. The era of the ‘Arab empire’ passed with the overthrow of the Umayyads in 132/750
and a profoundly different era was ushered in. 202 The post-Revolution empire was not only ‘dearabized’
politically, but (eventually) culturally as well. The impact of Persian, Hellenistic and
198 Q§wÊ al-HarawÊ, Kit§b jam# al-was§"il,15. Likewise al-B§jårÊ, Maw§hib al-ladunÊyah #al§ al-Sham§"il
al-MuÈammadÊyah, apud al-TirmidhÊ, al-Sham§"il al-MuÈammadÊyah, 22.
199 Q§wÊ al-HarawÊ, Kit§b jam# al-was§"il,14.
200 Al-Munawi, al-Raw∙ al-b§sim, 37.
201 Al-Suyåãī, Tārikh al-khulafā, 86. See also #Al§ al-DÊn b. Hus§m al-DÊn al-MuttaqÊ, Kanz al-#umm§l
(Haydarabad, 1312/1894-98) VI: 215 # 3755; al-Tha#§libÊ, Mukhtaßar§t, ed. Gustav Flügel, Der vertraute
Gefährte des Einsamen in schlagfertigen Gegenreden (Wien, 1829) 270 # 313; Goldziher, Muslim
Studies, 1:112.
202 Asma Afsaruddin, The First Muslims: History and Memory (Oxford: Oneworld, 2008) 106 notes: “The
third generation of Muslims, called the ‘Successors to the Successors’ (atba’ al-tabi’in) inherited a changed world after
the ‘Abbasid revolution…Important ideological, administrative, cultural, political, and socio-economic developments
and changes were ushered in after the overthrow of the Umayyads in 750.”
28

Ottoman culture on Islamic tradition is conspicuous in the ‘reconstituted SÊra’ with its
‘reconstructed’ image of MuÈammad.
VII.1. ‘Tell all the sons of H§shim…Retreat to the Hejaz and resume eating lizards’
Recent research has demonstrated that, while Arabized mawl§ from Kufa and Persianized
Arabs in Khurasan were involved, the preponderant element of the Revolution that toppled the
Umayyads was the Iranian masses who were resentful both of the Arabs’ putting an end to
eleven-hundred years of Persian civilization and the Arab racial arrogance and discrimination
that followed. 203 The success of the Revolution meant a redistribution of the ethnic weights. 204 It
is somewhat of an understatement to say that the Persians benefitted most under the #Abb§sid
caliphs, 205 most of whom were sons of non-Arab mothers. 206 The Persians in fact were so
influential under the new caliphs, a number of Muslim authors have characterized the Umayyad
and the #Abb§sid dynasties as Arab and Khurasanian respectively. 207 #Abb§sid culture was
profoundly shaped by Persian, 208 such that it can be said that Persian civilization would
“rebound…mutatis mutandis its Islamicization, slowly almost stealthily in less than a century.” 209 In
the process ethnic Arabs became less and less observable, 210 not only in administration but in all
203 Saleh Said Agha, The Revolution Which Toppled the Umayads: Neither Arab nor ‘Abbāsid (Leiden:
Brill, 2003) has made a strong and very convincing case in favor of the original thesis of Julius Wellhausen, Das
Arabische Reich und sein Sturz (1902) which fell out of favor largely due to the researches of M.A. Shaban (The
#Abb§sid Revolution [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970]) and Moshe Sharon (Black Banners
From the East [Jerusalem and Leiden: the Hebrew University, 1983]). Restö, Arabs, 24 notes as well: “the
Abbasid revolution in 750 was, to a large extent, the final revolt of the non-‘arab Muslims against the ‘arab and their
taking power. This revolt was dominated by the Iranian ‘aÆam (non-Arabs), and the outcome was the establishment
of at least formal equality between the two groups.” The Arabs in Khurasan were assimilated into Persian society.
Many spoke Persian, married Persian women and observed local Persian customs and holidays. See Ira M. Lapidus,
A History of Islamic Societies, 2 nd Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) 40. On the Arab
discrimination against non-Arabs in the early empire see Goldziher, Muslim Studies, I, Chapter Three.
204 Agha, Revolution, 324: “Arabs lost supremacy, but Islam and Arabic continued to prosper. The Establishment,
inasmuch as it was an Islamic edifice, was not destroyed, but was taken over and overhauled. It was…de-
Arabianized…The ‘Arab’ Muslim kingdom fell, and the inter-racial ‘Muslim’ empire rose, with Persian overtones.”
205 Afsaruddin, First Muslims, 107: “The group that benefitted the most from this sea change were the Persians, a
significant number of whom assumed important official positions in various ‘Abbasid administrations and who
wielded significant political as well as cultural influence…” Goldziher noted that “The preference for Persians was a
tradition of the #Abb§sid house.” Muslim Studies, I:139.
206 Only the first #Abb§sid caliph al-Saff§È (r. 749-754) was a pure Arab, in contrast to the Umayyad caliphs, almost
all of whom were pure Arabs. See Lewis, Race and Slavery, 39; Goldziher, Muslim Studies, I: 118-119.
207 Al-J§Èií, Bay§n wa-al-taly§n, 4 vols. ed. #Abd al-Sal§m MuÈammad H§rån (Egypt: Maktabat al-Kh§njÊ,
1960-61) III:366; al-DhahabÊ, Siyar, VI:58.
208 Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in
Baghdad and Early Abbasid Society (London and New York: Routledge, 1986) 34: “The transfer of the seat of
the caliphate to #Ir§q, and eventually to Baghd§d, after the accession of the #Abb§sids to power, placed #Abb§sid life
in the center of a Persian-speaking population. The history and culture of this population thus inevitably played a
crucial role in defining the new #Abb§sid culture that was being formed.”
209 David Levering Lewis, God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 (London and New
York: W.W. Norton, 2008)76. Johathan P. Berkey, The Formation of Islam. Religion and Society in the
Near East, 600-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 117 notes that, following the Revolution,
Persian was the non-Arab cultural tradition that “shaped Islam more than any other.”
210 G.E. von Grunebaum, Classical Islam. A History, 600 A.D. to 1258 A.D. (New Brunswick and London:
AldineTransaction, 2005 [1970]) 80: “The victory of the #Abb§ssids signified the pushing back, but not the
elimination of the Arabs…in the transition to national states the importance of the Arabs as a racial and military
29

fields, including the religious sciences. 211 Iranian scholars would become some of the chief
fashioners of Islamic tradition, and were instrumental in fact in creating a new Arab identity. 212
In this new philopersian environment, the Arabs themselves would become persona non
grata. 213 A violently anti-Arab sentiment was expressed in the Shu#åbiyya literature, most of
whose authors were Persian. 214 A common theme of this literature is Persian cultural superiority
over the Arabs. The deep anti-Arab sentiment displayed in this literature did not spare
MuÈammad’s own clan, the Banå H§shim. Said one Shu#åbÊ poet:
I am a noble of the tribe of Jam-he called in the name of the nation-and I demand the
inheritance of the Persian kings.
Tell all the sons of H§shim: submit yourselves before the hour of regret arrives.
Retreat to the Hejaz and resume eating lizards and herd your cattle
While I seat myself on the throne of the kings supported by the sharpness of my blade and
the point of my pen. 215
The Shu#åbÊ movement, which sought to remodel the whole spirit of Islamic culture on
the model of Sasanian institutions and values, was highly influential at the caliphal court. 216
Sasanian strands were “woven into the fabric of Muslim thought,” including a pronounced antiblack
ideology which, when combined with the anti-Arab sentiment, will have far reaching
consequences for the development of post-Umayyad Islamic tradition in general and the
unity declined visibly. The dissemination of Arabic as a cultural medium, the adoption of Arabic nomenclature by
the islamized non-Arabs and not least the Arab origin of the dynasty were all factors tending to conceal the gradual
disappearance of Arab preponderance in the #Abb§sid central administration.” While their political influence was
reduced, the social or socio-religious prestige of the Arabs remained, Grunebaum notes. It was left to the Iranian
shu#åbiyya to break the Arabs’ cultural monopoly. Ibid. 87. On the shu#åbiyya see below.
211 Goldziher, Muslim Studies, I:104-112, 140, 142.Hugh Kennedy notes that “It is characteristic of this
intellectual activity (of the #Abb§sid period) that it was overwhelmingly conducted by non-Arabs”: “Intellectual Life
in the First Four Centuries of Islam,” in Farhad Daftary (ed.), Intellectual Traditions in Islam (London and
New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2001) 24.
212 Richard W. Bulliet, Islam: The View From the Edge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994) 146, 152-
153: “many practices, beliefs, and institutions most characteristic of the period when Islam invented a uniform
identity for itself are rooted in the urban Muslim communities of eleventh-century Iran…the impact of the Iranian
diaspora (also) went beyond institutional changes. It affected the content of religious thought and practice as well…”;
Rina Drory, “The Abbasid Construction of the Jahiliyya: Cultural Authority in the Making,” Studia Islamica 83
(1996): 33-49: “the non-Arab maw§lÊ were the ones who actually constructed Arab identity for the Arab community
through a colossal effort of collecting and organizing knowledge belonging to ‘the Arab (and Islamic) sciences’. (42)”
213 See Goldziher, Muslim Studies, I:138; Drory, “Abbasid Construction,” 34: “the #Abb§sids were notorious for
their infatuation with Persian…sedentary, urban culture while condescending to ‘genuine Arabic’ (i.e. nomadic)
culture.”
214 On the Shu#åbiyya see EI 2 s.v.al-Shu#åbiyya by S. Endwitz; H.T. Norris, “Shu#åbiyya in Arabic Literature,” in
Julia Ashtiany et al (edd.), #Abbasid Belles-Lettres (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) 31-47; Roy P.
Mottahedah, “The Su#ûbîyah Controversy and the Social History of Early Islamic Iran,” International Journal
of Middle East Studies 7 (1976): 161-182; H.A.R. Gibb, “The Social Significance of the Shuubiya,” in Studies
on the Civilization of Islam, edd. Stanford J. shaw and William R. Polk (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962): 62-73;
Goldziher, Muslim Studies, I, Chapter Four.
215 al-Tha#§libÊ, Mukhtaßar§t, 272 #314.
216 Gutas, Greek Thought, 29; Drory, “Abbasid Construction,” 43; Lapidus, History, 76-77; Norris, “Shu#åbiyya,”
31; Gibb, “Social Significance,” 66; Goldziher, Muslim Studies, I:137-138.
30

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 Arab,
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 blackskinned
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
31

MuÈammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, calling him “Charcoal Face.” Al-Ma#mån (r. 813-833), a son of
a Persian mother, was well-known for his preference for Persians over Arabs. 220 We might thus
understand his mocking his uncle, the #Abb§sid prince Ibr§him b. al-MahdÊ (d. 839). Ibr§him, the
son of the caliph al-MahdÊ (r. 775-85) to a black concubine from Daylam in northwestern Iran,
was so exceedingly black (shadÊd suw§d al-lawn) he was nicknamed al-TinnÊn, ‘The Dragon.’ 221
After an unsuccessful bid for the throne, al- Ma#mån pardoned his uncle and called him before
him, taunting: “Are you then the black caliph?” 222
But this convergence of anti-Arab and anti-black sentiments among the #Abb§sids is best
articulated in the poetry of Abå al-\asan AlÊ b. al-#Abb§s b. Jurayj, also known as Ibn al-RåmÊ
(d. 896). Ibn al-RåmÊ was not an Arab. His mother was a Persian and his father was Byzantine
(some say half-Greek).
223
Yet, he was an advocate of the ill-treated black Arabs, in particular the
family of Prophet MuÈammad. Ibn al-RåmÊ fulminated in his poetry against the #Abb§sid abuse
of the tombs of the Shiite Imams and their living descendents of his day. He wrote to the
#Abb§sid caliph:
You insulted (the family of the Prophet) because of their blackness (bi-l-saw§d), while there
are still deep black, pure-blooded Arabs (al-#arab al-amȧ∙ akh∙ar ad#aj). However, you are
white 224 - the Romans (Byzantines) have embellished your faces with their color. The color
of the family of H§shim was not a bodily defect (#§ha). 225
It was inevitable that this new anti-Arab and anti-black sentiment would impact the
manner in which the Prophet was imagined and represented. In this context we can understand
the proliferation in the literature of this period of the impossible image of MuÈammad as aÈmar
which, in the Umayyad period, characterized non-Arabs. 226
Thought, 29. On the impact of Sasanian court-tradition on the memory of al- Manßår’s reign see also Joseph
Sadan, “The Division of the Day and Programme of Work of the Caliph al- Manßår,” Studia Orientalia.
Memoriae D.H. Baneth Dedicata (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1979) 255-272.
220 Goldziher, Muslim Studies, I:138.
221 Ibn al-JawzÊ, Kit§b tanwÊr al-ghabasg, 317 [Ar.], 150 [Eng.]; Ibn Khallikan, Wafay§t al-a#y§n (Bål§q, 1299
AH) I:10 (= Biographical Dictionary, trans. B. MacGuckin de Slane (New York and London: Johnson Reprint
Corporation, 1842-) I:1; EI2 3:987-88 s.v. Ibr§him b. al-MahdÊ by D. Sourdel. There is some debate as to how
Ibr§him acquired his dark complexion. See Graham W. Irwin, Africans Abroad: A Documentary History of
the Black Diaspora in Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean During the Age of Slavery (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1977) 68.Both and Irwin (Ibid.) and Lewis (Race, 89) doubt the reports which make
Ibr§him’s mother black, but their arguments are unconvincing. It is the case, however, that his intensely dark
complexion may have derived in part from his father. Al-Mas#ådÊ describes the caliph al-MahdÊ as “handsome, with
large, dark-brown (asmar) body”: al-TambÊh wa-"l-ishr§f (Baghdad: Makhtabat al-Mulhann§, 1967) 296-7.
222 Ibn Khallikan, Wafay§t al-a#y§n, I:10 (= Biographical Dictionary,I:18); Lewis, Race and Slavery, 89.
223 EI2 3:907-909 s.v. Ibn al- RåmÊ by S. Boustany; Dr. Ali A. El-Huni, The Poetry of Ibnal-Rumi (Critical
Study) (London: D§r al-\ikma, 1996) 13-18; Beatrice Gruendler, Medieval Arabic Praise Poetry. Ibn al-
RåmÊ and the Patron’s Redemption (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003) 42.
224 Literally blue, zurg. One of the many contradictory meanings of this term is white. See Allam, “Sociolinguistic
Study,” 87 and Lewis, Race and Slavery, 26 observes that white peoples in the north were called in Arabic ‘pale
blue’ as well as red.
225 Abå al-Faraj al-Ißbah§nÊ, Maq§til al-ãalibÊyyÊn, ed. AÈmad ‘aqr (Cairo: D§r IÈy§" al-Kutub al-ArabÊya, 1949)
759.
226 We already meet this image in the early biographical literature of age:; Ibn Sa#d, Kit§b al-ãabaq§t al-kabÊr,
I/ii,120, 121,122, 124, 129 (Ar.).
32

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.
33

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.
34

pen-boxes, necklaces, and posters. 248 Not surprisingly, in this very popular iconography the
Prophet is “depicted not as an Arab but with distinctly Persian features.” 249
VII.3. Medieval Portraits of a De-arabized Prophet
The earliest extant Muslim pictorial depictions of MuÈammd date to the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. 250 A number of manuscripts produced in this period, like the J§mi# al-
Taw§rÊkh produced by RashÊd al-DÊn (d. 1318), contain illustrated cycles of the Prophet’s life
drawn from accounts found in the standard sÊra sources: W§qidÊ, Ibn Sa#d, Ibn IsÈaq/Ibn
Hish§m, •abarÊ. 251 In these visual depictions the Prophet and his Companions are fully depicted;
the veiling of the prophetic visage doesn’t seem to have begun until around the sixteenth
century. 252 Characteristic of all of these depictions is the fair skin and rather Asian look of the
Prophet and his Companions. 253 This is not hard to comprehend.
RashÊd al-DÊn, who lived in the Persian city of Tabriz, was vizier to two successive
Mongol rulers of the Ilkh§nid dynasty which ruled parts of Persia at the time. After the Mongols
terminated the #Abb§sid caliphate in 1258, the first ruler to convert to Islam was Chingiz Khan
in 1295, becoming Mahmud Ghazan Khan. Hulagu (r. 1256-65) founded the Ilkh§nid dynasty
which encompassed Persia, Iraq, the Caucasus and Anatolia. Wanting to establish their
legitimacy as successors to great historical dynasties and as heirs to a religious tradition that goes
back to the Prophet and beyond him to the biblical prophets, the Ilkh§nid Khans created
manuscripts that were meant to bestow legitimacy on them and act as a form of state
propaganda. 254 Mahmud Ghazan Khan commissioned RashÊd al-DÊn to prepare a work on the
history of the Mongol tribes. This work was expanded to a general world history: the J§mi# al-
Taw§rÊkh or “A Compendium of Chronicles”. Considering the purpose of the work, it is not at all
surprising that the Prophet and his Companions would have a Mongol-look. In this manner the
dynasty is legitimized and its Central Asian former nomads acquire an important place within
the Heilsgeschicht of Islam. What is important to point out here is that we have another example of
the portrait of MuÈammad changing with a major demographic change in the umma and its
administration.
VIII. Conclusion
The earliest documented Arabs were likely a Kushite or dark-skinned group. The
Classical Arabic/Islamic literary sources confirm the same, that a noble Arab was a blackskinned
Arab. This makes it most unlikely that MuÈammad, reputedly a noble Arab, was fairskinned
as in the popular imagination and in official and un-official representations, literary as
well as visual. We have every reason to believe that the Arab prophet was a dark-skinned Arab,
248 Grabar and Naif, “Story of Portraits of the Prophet,” 34; Omid Safi, Ph.D, Memories of Muhammad: Why
the Prophet Matters (New York: HarpersCollins, 2009) 34-37.
249 Safi, Memories of Muhammad, 35 and portrait on 34; Grabar and Naif, “Story of Portraits of the Prophet,”
Pl. VIII.
250 Soucek, “Life of the Prophet,” 193-194; Ali, “Literal to the Spiritual,” 3; Arnold, Painting in Islam, 93.
251 Soucek, “Life of the Prophet,” 199.
252 Ali, “Literal to the Spiritual,” 10; Arnold, Painting in Islam, 98.
253 See Soucek, “Life of the Prophet,” figs. 1-9; Ali, “Literal to the Spiritual,” figs. 1-8; Arnold, Painting in Islam,
Pls. XIX-XX, XXII-XXIII.
254 Ali, “Literal to the Spiritual,” 2, 6.
35

including explicit testimony in the literary sources. While testimony to a fair-skinned MuÈammad
is found there as well, this is no doubt a secondary development that was impacted by the
changed status of Arabs and non-Arabs within the kingdom.
The biography of the prophet MuÈammad as found in the standard sÊra texts is
undoubtedly tendentious. It was shaped not only by sectarian disputes within Islam, but also by
inter-faith dialogue and dispute between Muslims and the non-Muslim subject peoples within the
kingdom. 255 The portraits of the Prophet, literary and visual, are likewise equally tendentious.
Oleg Grabar and Mika Natif suggest that these prophetic portraits were affected by popular
tastes. 256 It appears that with the fall of the Arab kingdom, there was little popular taste for an
ethnically Arab prophet. 257 At a point in the #Abb§sid period, the Muslim populace became
preponderantly non-Arab, 258 and Persian culture was more influential than any other for a while
after the Revolution. Tarif Khalidi has suggested that the biography of the Prophet might be
seen as a form of synecdoche, in which the individual life stands for, symbolizes, and prefigures
the larger communal history. 259 In this regard, this de-arabization of MuÈammad no doubt
reflects the de-arabization of the umma MuÈammadiyya and Islamic tradition.
255 EQ 5:29-51 s.v. SÊra and the Qur"§n by Wim Raven; Tilman Nagel, Mohammed: Leben and Legend
(Munich: Oldenbourg, 2008); idem, Allahs Liebling: Ursprung und Erscheinungsformen des
Mohammedglauben (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2008); Cottfried Hagen, “The Imagined and the Historical
MuÈammad,” JAOS 129 (2009): 97-111; Herbert Berg, Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins
(Leiden: Brill, 2003); H. Motzi (ed.), The Biography of MuÈammad. The Issue of the Sources (Leiden, 2000);
Michael Cook, Muhammad (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) Chapter 7 (“The sources”); M. Schöller,
Exegetisches Denken und Prophetenbiographie. Eine quellenkritische Analyse der SÊra
Überlieferung zu MuÈammads Konflikt mit den Juden (Berlin, 1996); Uri Rubin, The Eye of the
Beholder: The Life of MuÈammad as Viewed by the Early Muslims. A Textual Analysis (Princeton,
New Jersey: The Darwin Press, 1995); F.E. Peters, “The Quest of the Historical Muhammad,” IJMES 23 (1991):
291-315; Patricia Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, 1987) Chapter 9 (“The Sources”); Sebastian Günther, “MuÈammad, the Illiterate Prophet: An Islamic Creed
in the Qur’an and Qur’anic Exegesis,” JQS 4 (2002): 1-26; Isaiah Goldfeld, “The Illiterate Prophet (NabÊ UmmÊ): An
inquiry into the development of a dogma in Islamic Tradition” Der Islam 57 (1980): 58-67; Sara Stroumsa, “The
Signs of Prophecy: The Emergence and Early Development of a Theme in Arabic Theological Literature,” HTR 78
(1985): 101-14; Sidney H. Griffith, “The Prophet MuÈammad, His Scripture and His Message According to the
Christian Apologies in Arabic and Syriac From the First Abbasid Century,” in La Vie du prophete Mahomet;
colloque de Strasbourg, octobre 1980 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1983) 99-146; idem,
“Comparative Religion in the Apologetics of the First Christian Arabic Theologians,” in Proceedings of the
Patristic, Mediaeval and Renaissance Conference 4 (1979): 63-87; Richard C. Martin, “The Role of the
Basrah Mutazilah in Formulating the Doctrine of the apologetic Miracle,” JNES 39 (1980) 175-89; R. Sellheim,
“Prophet, Calif und Geschichte. Die Muhammad-Biographie des Ibn Isȧq,” Oriens 18-19 (1965-66): 33-91;
Harris Birkeland, The Lord Guideth. Studies on Primitive Islam (Oslo: I Kommisjon Hos H. Aschehoug &
Co. [W. Nygaard], 1956); Geo Widengren, MuÈammad, the Apostle of God, and his Ascension
(Uppasala/Wiesbaden, 1955); Joseph Horovitz, “The Growth of the Mohammed Legend,” MW 10 (1920): 49-58;
Tor Andrae, Die person Muhammeds in lehre und glauben seiner gemeinde (Stockholm: P.A. Vorstedt og
söner, 1918). This is not to say that we can’t mine this mass of late traditional material for imformation related to
early Islam. See especially Andreas Görke and Gregor Schoeler, Die ältesten Berichte über das Leben
MuÈammads: Das Korpus #Urwa ibn az-Zubair (Princeton, NJ: The Darwin Press, Inc., 2008).
256 Grabar and Naif, “Story of Portraits of the Prophet,” 33.
257 Ali’s observation seems quite germane here: “although the description of the Prophet (viz. as ruddy-white, etc.) is
quite explicit in the Arabic annals, there is not a single picture painted by an Arab that portrays him. On the other
hand, among the Turks, the Persians and the Indians, whose artistic heritage had been rich in pictorial images and
whose language is other than Arabic, the Prophet was actually portrayed…” Ali, “Literal to the Spiritual,” 10.
258 Berkey, Formation, 118.
259 Khalidi, Images, 3.
36

This study has a number of implications for scholarship on Islam. First, it strongly
suggests that the common scholarly trope of the Arabian ‘swarthy whites’ be abandoned, as it has
little support in the sources and is more a figment of scholarly imagination. Secondly, while
Bernard Lewis’s study of race and slavery in Islam was ground-breaking, this study suggests that
a new interpretation of the development of the racial ethic in early Islam is desirable. 260 It seems
that we have the extraordinary case of black anti-white racism giving way to white anti-black
racism, both in the context of an articulation of Islam. 261 While the latter has been explored, the
former – black racism in Islam – has not. Such a situation is worthy of further study.
260 While Lewis acknowledges that pre-Islamic Arabia was free of an anti-Black, anti-African sentiment, he attributes
the development of these sentiments to the ‘Bedouin aristocracy of the conquests’. But these Bedouin Arabs, we have
shown, were a proud black-skinned group themselves. The beginning of anti-black racism must be sought elsewhere.
See Lewis, Racism and Slavery, 21-26; idem, “Crows,” 90. For a more recent discussion see Drake, Black Folk,
II, Chapter Five. Drake, following Lewis, also assumes that anti-black (or anti-Negro) prejudice existed among the
Bedouin conquerors.
261 On Arab racism against the ‘red’ maw§lÊ see Ibn #Abd Rabbihi, al-#Iqd al-farÊd, III: 317-328; Lewis, Race and
Slavery, 38; Goldziher, Muslim Studies, Chapter Three.
37