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

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