Note too that the early Arab (not African) leader ‘Ubada inb al-Samit is described as a black (aswad) man, and consider the expression used by the Arabic writers to mean “non Arabs and Arabs” (i.e., the whole world), al-ahmar wa’l-aswad, “the red and the black” respectively. Similarly the explanation of al-Jahiz, which he puts in the mouths of the Zanj (black Africans): “The Arabs belong with us not with the whites, because their color is nearer to ours… For the Prophet, God bless and save him, said, ‘I was sent to the red and the black,’ and everyone knows that the Arabs are not red.” Jahiz concludes: “Our blackness, O people of the Zanj, is not different from the blackness of the Banu Sulaym and other Arab tribes. We can add several other authors including those who use the term in the context of Ham’s curse of dark skin.
Ka’b al-Ahbar (d. ca. 652), a Jewish Yemeni convert to Islam, spoke of the cursed descendants of Ham “begetting black [aswadayn] male and female children until they multiplied and spread along the shore. Among them are the Nubians [nuba], the Negroes [zanj], the Barbars [brb], the Sindhis [sind], the Indians [hind] and all the blacks [sudan]: they are the children of Ham. We saw earlier that Wahb inbn Munabbih (d. ca. 73), “a celebrated authority on the traditions of the ahl al-kitab,” reported that God “changed [Ham’s] color and the color of his descendants in response to his father’s curse,” and that Ham’s descendants are Kush, Canaan, and Fut; Fut Fut’s descendants are the Indians; and Kush and Canaan’s descendants are the various races of blacks [sudan]: Nubians, Zanj, Qaran, Zaghawa, Ethiopians, Copts and Barbar. In another source Wahb is reported to have said that Canaan’s descendants were the blacks [al-aswid], Nubians [nuba], Fezzan [Fazzan], Zanj [zanj], Zaghawah [zaghawa], and all the peoples of the Sudan [sudan]. The Akhbar al zaman counts “among the descendants of Sudan, son of Kan’an…the Ishban, the Zanj, and many peoples that multiplied in the Maghrib, about 70 of then.
Clearly, the rabbinic story of sex in the ark is an etiology that is meant to account for the existence of all dark skinned people, not just the Black African. Although, to the best of my knowledge, rabbinic literature does not mention the skin color of the Putites and Canaanites, who descended from Ham, it does refer to the dark skin of Ham’s other descendant, the Egyptians. In the next chapter, we will see two examples of Egyptians referred to as Kushites because of their dark skin color. (107)
Archaeological and epigraphic (South Arabian) evidence in East Africa indicates that already in the early first millennium B.C.E. there were strong trade contracts between East Africa and Arabia. Similarly, “topographical names with Sabean foundations testify.. to the relations between ancient Yemen and Abyssinia. The anonymous author of the Periplus says that in his time a significant part of the East African coast (“Azania” was subject to the kingdom of Arabia “by ancient right” and that Arab traders “through continual intercourse and intermarriage, are familiar with the area and its language. Lewicki notes that the name Azania itself indicates the existence of South Arabian traders in East Africa, “many centuries BC,” for the name is a Greek transcription of the Arabic name Ajam. In light of the evidence from the Greek and Latin texts of a slave trade in black Africans during the first six centuries of the Common Era, it is likely that these trad contacts between Africa and Arabia included slaves.
Another reflection of biblical imagery may be indicated in the midrashic play on the Arabic word Kuwayyis to describe the Kushites as particularly handsome people. (195)
“To the Cushite race belonged the oldest and purest Arabian blood. They were the original Arabians and the creators of the ancient civilization, evidences of which may be seen in the stupendous ruins to be found in every part of the country. At the time that Ethiopians began to show power as monarchs of Egypt about 3000 to 3500 B. C. the western part of Arabia was divided into two powerful kingdoms.”
“Meleck Yarfrick, king of Arabia Felix, who conducted a people called Sabcei into Libya, made himself master of that country, established his followers there, and gave it the name Africa…”
Arabia Felix (Egypt Nubia East North Africa) 1576 Petri rare woodcut old map. Issued Basel, 1576 by Henri Petri for Pomponii Melae de Orbis Situ.Charming and quite rare 16th century woodblock miniature map. Despite the title, the map includes almost the entire Arabian peninsula as well as the coast of Persia.
“Malik, Melik, Malka, Malek, Malick, or Melekh is the Semitic term translating to “king”, recorded in East Semitic and later Northwest Semitic (e.g. Aramaic, Canaanite, Hebrew) and Arabic. The earliest form of the name Maloka was used to denote a prince or chieftain in the East Semitic Akkadian language of the Mesopotamian states of Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia and Chaldea. The Northwest Semitic mlk was the title of the rulers of the primarily Amorite, Sutean, Canaanite, Phoenician and Aramean city-states of the Levant and Canaan from the Late Bronze Age. Eventual derivatives include the Aramaic, Neo Assyrian, Mandic and Arabic forms: Malik, Malek, Mallick, Malkha, Malka, Malkai and the Hebrew form Melek. Moloch has been traditionally interpreted the epithet of a god, known as “the king” like Baal was an epithet “the master” and Adon an epithet “the lord”, but in the case of Moloch purposely mispronounced as Molek instead of Melek using the vowels of Hebrew bosheth “shame”
“Arabia Felix (literally: Fertile Arabia; also Ancient Greek: Eudaemon Arabia) was the Latin name previously used by geographers to describe South Arabia,[1][2] or what is now Yemen.[3] The term “Fertile Arabia” is a translation of the Latin “Arabia Felix”. Felix means “fecund, fertile” but also “happy, fortunate, blessed.” Arabia Felix was one of three regions into which the Romans divided the Arabian peninsula: Arabia Deserta, Arabia Felix, and Arabia Petraea. The Greeks and the Romans called Yemen Arabia Felix.
“Strabo” and “Diodorus” and other ancient’s who identified everything East of the Nile as “Arabia”, “WHEN we were describing Arabia, we included in the description the gulfs which compress and make it a peninsula, namely the Gulfs of Arabia and of Persis. We described at the same time some parts of Egypt, and those of Ethiopia, inhabited by the Troglodytæ, and by the people situated next to them, extending to the confines of the Cinnamon country.” (Quoting Strabo Book 17.1)
dated means: dated Formerly in common use, and still in occasional use, but now unfashionable;
Portrait of young Abram Hannibal.
“The term aswad was used in Arabic literature to describe any dark-skinned person, not necessarily a black African. The Arabs are depicted as white skinned in the hadith and as dark skinned in the midrash, but the perception of color is relative and in the eye of the perceiver. To the Jew the Arab was dark, as we saw in several other examples, and for our purposes the important point is that in the rabbinic story the dark-skinned Arab is called Kushi.”
“Such usage is echoed in Byzantine sources, in which we find, after the fourth century, that the terms “Indian” and “Indians” refer to three different places and its peoples: the Indian subcontinent, South Arabia, and Ethiopia. Some would date this usage as early as the third century. Note also that the Troglodytes, on the east coast of Africa, were variously classified as Ethiopians, Arabs, or Indians by classical writers.”
“The confusion in antiquity and late antiquity of the terms India and Ethiopia, and the use of “Indian” to refer to South Arabians, thus parallels the rabbinic usage of Kushi for Arab. The rabbinic view of the Arab as dark skinned is, perhaps, echoed in the name of Abgar V Ukkama, the king of Edessa in the first century C.E. Many of the Abgar dynasty were ethnically Arab, and “Abgar” itself is an Arabic name.”
“Tacitus specifically refers to Abgar V as an Arab who led Arab troops. The name Ukkama is Syriac (the language of Edessa) and means “black.” Although there is some dispute as to why Abgar was called “the black,” there is a good possibility that his skin color was the reason. We know of a number of individuals in antiquity and late antiquity who were nicknamed “the black.”
“Josephus, for example, mentions a Niger of Peraea who was general of the Jewish army in the war against Rome, as well as onetime governor of Idumaea. “Niger” and various derivaites were Latin cognomina chose for the color of one’s hair, eyes, or skin.”
“The prophet or teacher at Antioch, “Simeon called Niger” (Acts 13:1), apparently got his cognomen because of his dark complexion. In Syriac we know of Mar Ukkama who was one of the founders of a monastery in the seventh century. Indeed, sch nicknames seem to be a universal phenomenon. It is therefore not unlikely that Abgar Ukkama was so named because of his Arab dark complexion in the eyes of the surrounding population, just as the Jews of Palestine considered the Arabs to be dark skinned. Use of the term kushi to refer to a dark-skinned Arab continued into the Jewish Middle Ages.”
“A Hebrew poem found the Cairo Genizah records the Fatimid campaign against the Banu Jarrah in the early eleventh century. Written by Menahem be-Rabbi Yom Tav [sic] he-Hazzan shortly after the event, it refers to the Banu Jarrah, who were from southern Arabia and had very dark skin, as Kushim.”
“According to Ezra Fleischer, who published the poem, a contemporaneous source, the poem Bekhu ahay vegam sifdu by Joseph ibn Abitur, also refers to the Banu Jarrah in this way, calling them Kushim, while a letter from Sadoq Halevi ben Levi in Israel called them shehorim ‘blacks.'”
“Another example from the Middle Ages is afforded by several medieval exegetes who commented on the biblical identification of Moses’ wife as a “Kushite” (Num 12:1). Following the line that Moses’ wife was Zipporah (Ex. 2:21), they said that since Zipporah was a Midianite/Arab (“Ishmaelite”), she was called a Kushite because she was “very dark like the Kushites.”
“This view of the Arab as dark skinned is also found among other peoples, as is indicated by the term arap (i.e. Arab) meaning “black African” in modern Turkish, Greek, and Russian, as well as in Yiddish.”
“The meaning of kushi as dark skinned occurs also in a tenth century apocalyptic Genizah fragment dealing with the Byzantine emperors from Michael III to Romanus I (842-944 C.E.). According to this text, Emperor Leo VI, “the Wise,” made a close favorite of his, a kushi, co-emperor for twenty-two years of his reign.”
“Arabia [of עָרַב , Heb. Black, or of Harabi, Heh. a Thief or Robber] the one account of their swarthy complexion and the latter on account of their thievish disposition. The Arabians having in all Ages been so addicted to this Vice, that, as Matin del Rio observes, it was as usual with the Jews to call a Thief an Arabian, as it was to call a Merchant a Canaanite, and a Mathematician a Chaldean.”
Source: Dictionary of races or peoples by United States. Immigration Commission (1907-1910); Dillingham, William P. (William Paul), 1843-1923; Folkmar, Daniel, 1861-1932; Folkmar, Elnora (Cuddeback) 1863-1930 The U.S. Immigration Dictionary of Races and Peoples was originally intended to guide the Immigration Commission workers, but when it became clear that it would appear too late for that, it came to be seen as the Commission’s summation of knowledge about each race or people.”
“The Arabians are related to the Hebrews and include Arabs proper and the wandering Bedouin tribes of the desert. (See Semetic-Hamitic). They have long since spread out from the country that bears their name and settled in distant portions of Africa and Asia, as well as penetrated into Europe. They have given their language through the Koran, to the vaster populations of Mohammedan faith. They are not to be confounded with the Turks (see), who are Mongolian, Tatar, in origin and speech rather than Caucasian. Neither are they closely related to the Syrians (see), who are Christians and Aryans, not Semites; nor even to the Berbers and the modern Moors of north Africa, who are Hamitic rather than Semetic in origin. Yet Syrians and Moors alike have long used the Arabic tongue.” Dictionary of races or peoples by United States. Immigration Commission (1907-1910); Dillingham, William P. (William Paul), 1843-1923; Folkmar, Daniel, 1861-1932; Folkmar, Elnora (Cuddeback) 1863-1930
“According to the 13th c. Lisan -al-Arab, Khudr or dark brown “with kinky hair”- like the Iranian girl here, was the predominant color of the Arabs of Muhammad’s time, while others were shadeed al-udmah much darker. The most important question is why up to the 15th century Arabia was still predominantly black or filled with “Khudr” and “sumr” populations, and the history books never mention it.” (Quoting Dana Reynolds Marniche)
“Afro-Turks are often called “Arabs” in Turkey. They also refer to themselves as Arabs, at times. This has led to a situation in which “Arab” means “black.” University professor Ahmet Yurur explains. “For the Turks, Africa was only the northern part of the continent: from Egypt to Morocco. This part was of course under Arab influence. Turks were never really interested in the south of the continent. This is why this community has come to be called ‘Arab,” he says.”
“WHEN we were describing Arabia, we included in the description the gulfs which compress and make it a peninsula, namely the Gulfs of Arabia and of Persis. We described at the same time some parts of Egypt, and those of Ethiopia, inhabited by the Troglodytæ, and by the people situated next to them, extending to the confines of the Cinnamon country.”
“The Moorish “henchmen” and their ruler are said to live in tents and in a white manors or towers by the sea. In another tale, Marco, in order to achieve one of his heroic deeds at one point when he is in the accursed dungeon of “Azak”, takes black dye “and dyed black his white face, he made of himself a black Arab, and let out his good brown steed”. (p. 111).”
“In Bulgaria, as among the Roma, black face is often used for the Arapi, i.e. Arabs, in mumming or mummers parades. In certain villages “entire faces are blackened, and not just with soot but with a dark-black greasepaint or polish” (Creed, Gerald, 2011, p. 190).”
“In studying the history of the Arabian peninsula and use of Arab names in genealogy one becomes aware that certain of them over time had come to signify things other than what they originally meant among the Arabic speaking, but non-Arab historians and their translators. For example, the names that should have been translated as Musri or Muzir or Mizraim came to be translated by writers in our time as Egypt. Meanwhile the name of the Arabian tribe of Banu Faris has been translated as” Persian”, and so on and so on. It is how for example Japhet came to be perceived of as other than an Arabian people.”
“The name Zanj or Zanuj appears to have been another word for dark-skinned populations whether from the continent of Asia or Africa and including the peninsula of Arabia. It came to mean the rust colored people but may have been connected to the name of Azania as suggested by. David Goldenberg. The Iranians for example used the word to refer to the dark-skinned Arabs that had been pushed back from Persia. They were considered descendants of Zohhakk, the Arabian. Earliest rulers of Iran (Medes and Persians) appear to have had such names as Az-Dahakka or (Astyages) and Deioces (translated as Dahakka). “The name is identified by Rawlinson and Niebuhr (Gesch. Assur’s, p. 32) with Deioces = Ashdahak (Arm.), Ajis Dahaka (Pe’s.), the biting snake, the emblem of the Median power.”
“It should be noted that the name was considered connected to that of the Daae or Daasas of Central Asia who were ancestral to the Achaemenids of Persia. These people who built tripura or castles surrounded by three concentric circles were likely those that had first settled in Baluchistan and Central Asia with a culture called Namazgha IV. There was originally some connection with the word daeva and in fact divine. The name Dasa however, later came to have the connotation of dark force, slave or servant as the Scythic (Armenian related) people moved and pushed them southward adopting the Haoma (Soma) practices and according to the Greeks even the name Arya itself, from the early Medes.”
“According to al-Masudi it was Nabataeans (Arabians who had settled and built Babylonia) who first called themselves Arya and that the name meant lion. These people of Faris and the Medes/Maitanni likely introduced the so-called Indo-Iranic script and culture. However, early Orientalists tried to justify an exceedingly early arrival for such people in India based on the idea that the earliest Aryans were proto-Europeans.”
“In Arab tradition the Madhhij tribe of Al-Ash’ar begat Judda (Gad). The nomad tribe of Judda or Jadda (Gadd/”Gad”) founded the town of Jeddah/Jiddah in Hijaz and Judda was often in the company of Ash’ar. Just as Gad is mentioned together with Asher in the Torah. “He is al-Ash’ar … the brother of Madhhij and, it is said, the son of Madhhij in Ibn Kalbi’s account. He begat al—Jumahir, al—Argham, al—Adgham, al-An’am, Judda,..” Al-Iqd al’Farid the Unique Necklace by ibn Abd Rabbih Vol. published 2012 p. 295 Al-Argham is the Arabic for “Jerachme’el”.
“There is a large group of scholars that have been invested in dismissing anything that would connect the early Arabian, and thus Afro-Asiatic, origins of the Jews and Israelites. This, of course, parallels the attempts of other scholars to refute any connection of black Africans with the early Moors and Berbers. Here is an excellent example of someone that is in denial about the early Jews in Arabia and Africa attempts to identify such observations by medieval travelers as Eldad ha-Dani and Benjamin of Tudela as mostly fantasy or fantastical.”
“As in the case of the Central Asian tribes the Yemeni ten tribes story begins with an exorbitant demography – ‘100,000 in Teima’ and ‘300,000 in Tanai,,” the main city in the region. But what concerns Benjamin most is the city of Kheibar (Khaybar), located not in Yemen, but ‘sixteen day’ journey to the north’ in the Hijaz:
‘People say that the men of Kheibar belong to the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh, whom Shalmaneser, king of Assyria led hiter into captivity. They have built strongly fortified cities and make war upon all other kingdoms. … Kheibar is a very large city with 50,000 Jews. In it are learned men and great warriors, who wage war with the men of Shinar and of the land of the north, as well as with the bordering tribes of the land of El-Yemen near them, which latter country is [in] the confines of India.” The Ten Lost Tribes : A World History by Zvi Ben-Dor Benite 2009 p. 106-107
Further down this author states -“It is fascinating how persistent the story of the Hijazi ten tribes was…” “Behind this topos of the Arabian ten tribes is the fact of Jewish tribes in Arabia up to the time of Muhammad; in this regard, Benjamin’s Kheibar” is not wholly fictional. Khaybar was ‘the great Jewish centre in the north of the Hajez’ at the time of the Prophet Muhammad. A rich oasis with a fortified Jewish village, Khaybar provided economic and political sustenance to the rest of the Jewish tribes in the Hijaz. A ‘hotbed of anti-Muslim intrigue,’ it was certainly a Jewish power with which Muhammad had to contend on his way to control of the region and of Arabia…”
Nevertheless, both Eldad ha-Dani (whose name likely derived from the Hadramaut tribe named Daan) and Benjamin of Tudela are claimed by this author to have gathered their information and pronounced their statements based on hearsay. Benjamin is accused of mainly borrowing from Eldad. The author also appears oblivious to the fact that since the period of Byzantium until the late medieval period of Marco Polo – the Yemen was referred to as- India and primarily as Little India or India Minor. He writes -“Here again is an instance of fantastic geography, this time connecting Yemen with India – a testimony to the space –defying powers of the ten tribes’ geography in Arabia borders on India.”
And in fact, the man from the tribe of Dan must have been from the Dan or Da’an of the Hadramaut in Yemen from the Habbani, who claim descent from Dan and Bahila (“Bilha” mother of Dan in the Torah.). According to Arab manuscripts The Habbania are the descendants ” of Habban son of el Kulus son of ‘Amr son of Kays, a sub-tribe of Bahila”. A History of the Arabs in Sudan Harold MacMichael 1922. Bahila according to tradition was originally a woman from the Sabaean tribe of Hamdan, who married Ma’an b. Asur or A’sir b. Saad of the Azd from whom were derived some lineages of Qays b. Ailan including Suhm or Sahm, who are called Suham in the Torah, son of Dan. In addition, as I’ve mentioned many times before Ghunai or Ghani b. Asur another tribe of the Arabian Bahilah is undoubtedly the Ghuni that is in the Torah the grandson of Bilha through her other son “Naphtali”.
“In addition the tribe of Naphtali (now called al-Maftalah in the A’sir), Gadd (called Jadda/Judda) and Ash’ar are Yemenite tribes mentioned by Eldad of the Dan tribe living beyond the river Kush – which may refer to the river of the Kush in the Yemen (where Moses/Muzaikiyya once lived), or else, the Nile which they colonized (and where they were both considered Sabaeans. ) The river Sambathes or Sabbation may thus have been the same or connected to the river in Africa the earlier Greeks called Astaboras named for the city of Sabotha or Sabtah 50 miles north of lake Tana in Ethiopia. The fact that he mentions fire worshippers suggest the Sambation or this land of Israelites was somewhere near the Blemmyes or Beja tribes.”
“The “Makir” coastal inhabitants (Macherten/Majertein of Somalia or the Bin Samaal) who in the Torah are called “Machir” a clan of “Manasse”, and related to the Galadi or (“Gilead”= al-Jadda or Gad) must represent some of the folk that came relatively late to the Horn, from the Rahawiyyn or Rahanweyn located on both sides of the Red Sea but derived from the Yemenite Madh’hij (Madghis?), like Ash’ar (“Asher”), Murad and the Tayyi. People like the Afar (“Apher” and “Ifren” ) or Midianites, Dedan (Udad/Yudadas) must have come in at an earlier time. Meanwhile the people of the Zaghai/Sughai/ Songhai (Zakkai/”Zaccai” or “Kenite” (Kanuri) group from Heber and the Hammathites (Hamadha, or sons of Ham) may have arrived around the same time. Eldad claimed when he arrived in Tunisia that peoples of Israel had settled in Azania as well, which is reference to East Africa, and that he was a citizen of that region.”
“Lisan al-Arab was written between by Ibn Manzur who lived between the 13th and 14th centuries. Thankfully, Tariq Berry was the first in this era to expose in his The Unknown Arabs pointed out that Ibn Manzur wrote in it he wrote that “most Arabs” were “dark brown’ in color and possessed kinky hair. Ibn Manzur also said it was the Arabs that called themselves the blacks. And such Arabs that were ‘dark brown” i.e. near black said it was because they were “pure” Arabs. See p. 60 of The Unknown Arabs and Vol. 4 of Lisaan el-Arab.”
“And Ibn Manzur was not the only medieval writer to state that the blacker Arabs were the purer Arabs. Al-Dhahabi said that any individual in Hijaz fair in color was considered to be derived in part from non-Arab slaves in Siyar al-Nubalaa. But he also says it was rare to sees fair skinned Arabs in Hijaz in any case. Fortunately . it is also known that the tribes of the Hijaz were the populations that extended into Central Arabia or Nejd.”
“This lets us know that at the time of the earlier invasions of North Africa and Spain between the the true Arabs referred to themselves as “the blacks” and looked it – Or like modern black Africans – who as we remember are called Arap (Arab) today in eastern Europe, Yiddish and Russian for this very reason. When we add to this the fact that a century later the Chinese recorded the people of Hijaz as looking very dark purple in complexion a phrase they used for black people of southern India as well then there is very little one can do but assume that those people have been amalgamated with non-Arab populations. This is logical but most people in the West are in denial.”
“However more importantly the same exact diverse tribes and clan names that were found in in pre-Islamic times on both sides of the Red Sea, and this is why Strabo and Diodorus identify everything east of the Nile in Africa as Arabia. It is also why Josephus refers to the Gaitules/Joddala (Berbers) of Numidia as descendants of Havila founders of Zeila or Zawila. the Horn and North Africa. That is to say the African was the Arabian and the Arabian was the African in that day. Same people same culture and same names. Which is why it is silly to complain about Arabs being called African or vice versa.”
“Originally in fact Arab or Yarab was the name of a single tribe of the Qahtan while the name of Africa itself (was undoubtedly derived from name of the leader or name of one of these South Arabian tribes Afren and Afarik. It part of Tunisia and Tripolitania was the name of a Arabia was nothing less than the biological and cultural extension the populations of Africa in the period between the 7th and 3rd millennium BC. Some of these populations appear to have settled northward as far as Anatolia and the Fertile Crescent. After some ancient conflict in the region of Yemen in the second millennium and one early flooding of the Marib (Meribah) dam some of the people came to flee to the north and others across the less than 19 miles of water to Africa. That was one of the early waves that led to settlements of what are today called “Africans”. Of course, in that period there was no such name. The above should help put things like the usage of the term black, Arabian and African on this page into historical context.”
Orientalist James Hamilton wrote of the Ateibah or Otaibah, “they wore their hair in long curly plaits” and their skin was “a dark brown”. See pp. 129-130, Wanderings Around the Birthplace of Mohammed, published by R. Bentley, 1857.
“Al-J ā ḥ i ẓ , Fakhr al- sūdān ‘alā l -bidan , in Risa’il Al-Jahiz , 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). 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( ahmar ) the Arabs call themselves black. “
“These Western observations are in complete accord with the confessions found in Classical Arabic/Islamic literature. Ibn Man ẓ ūr (d. 1311), author of the most authoritative classical Arabic lexicon, Lisān al – ‘arab , notes the opinion that the phrase aswad al-jilda , ‘black – skinned,’ idiomatically meant khāli ṣ al- ‘arab , “the pure Arabs,” “because the color of most of the Arabs is dark ( al-udma ).” 3 In other words,blackness of skin among the Arabs indicated purity of Arab ethnicity.”
“Likewise, the famous grammarian from the century prior, Muhammad b. Barrī al – ‘Adawī (d. 1193) noted that an Akh ḍ ar or black-skinned Arab was “a pure Arab ( ‘ arab ī ma ḥḍ )” with a pure genealogy, “because Arabs describe their color as black ( al-aswad )” 4 Al-Ja ḥ i ẓ (d. 869), in his Fakhr al-s ū d ā n ‘ al ā l-bidan , declared: “The Arabs pride themselves in (their) black color, نول د وس رفت برعل ( al- ‘ arab tafkhar bi-saw ā d al-lawn )” 5 Finally Al-Mubarrad (d. 898), the leading figure in the Basran grammatical tradition, took this a step further when he claimed:
“ The Arabs used to take pride in their brown and black complexion ( al-sumra wa al- sawād ) and they had a distaste for a white and fair complexion ( al- ḥ umra wa al-shaqra ), and they used to say that such was the complexion of the non-Arabs. ”
Ezaldeen, Muhammad a.k.a. Lomax Bey Founder Of The Addeynu Allahe Universal Arabic Association. Ex. Founding Member of the Moorish Science Temple of America, Inc.,
“Ezaldeen proceeded with the establishment of the new AAUAA unit, which became a competitor to the program and teachings of the MST. The AAUAA offered courses on the Qur’an, the sunna, the Hametic (Black) Arab heritage, and the Arabic language. Tensions between the Moorish Science Temple of America and the AAUAA were evident but kept to a minimum and did not contain Ezaldeen’s influence. Wahab Arbubakar, a student of Ezaldeen’s, recalled that when he met Ezaldeen, he spoke about the one true Allah, the prophets, the holy books, and the hereafter. Arbubakar had not known much about Islam prior to meeting Ezaldeen; he recalled that the most profound religious teaching he heard from Ezaldeen was the al-fatiha (opening chapter of the Qur’an) and the adhan, or “call to prayer.” Ezaldeen also taught his students that the term Arab was a linguistic term and not a racial one. Although he taught that the original Arabs were black (Hametic), the emphasis in his teachings was placed on language and faith, not race, as the highest form of identification for a person. Malik Arbubakar, son of Wahab Arbubakar, stated that “Professor Ezaldeen was keen to pointing out that we were Hametic Arabs and he taught us that just because our foreign-born brothers and sisters came from Arabia and other Muslim countries, did not give them any greater claim on al-Islam than we had.”
Dana Reynolds-Marniche: “The Arab al -Mutaribah refers to the Ishmaelites not mixed Arabs in the sense you are using it. Arabs were an ethnicity before it was a language or political term.”
Dana Reynolds-Marniche: “There were no “mixed” Arabs in the ancient world. It originally referred to people that were not purely of Qahtan stock and then later some tried to turn even the Qahtan into Musta’ribah. The Kushites means the Qahtan Arab Yokshan or Midianites. And no they aren’t any purer then the Ishmaelites, i. e the Mizraim (Minaeans) or Adnan who colonized Aden.Ishmael camee from the south originally. That is why it is good to read the Arab genealogies on where these Ma’adei Adnan people originated. In any case I explain it in this latest publication coming out soon. Any time now.” “The Ḥabasha are Christians; their complexion is like that of the Arabs, …” black “… (the term used was abyad); they are scattered along the coast as far as opposite Aden. The Nūba are Christians; their country is larger than Ethiopia and has more towns and villages than Ethiopia.” 10th c. AD of Nisibis Of the Beja of Nubia and the Eastern desert “Leaving Qulzum on the western side of this sea [Red Sea], one moves along the edge of a barren desert where nothing grows and only sees off-shore the islands we have mentioned above. This desert is the home of the Buja, who dwell under hair tents. Their skin is darker than that of the Ḥabasha although their features are similar to those of the Arabs. ” Another translation of the last sentence says “their skin is much darker than the Abyssinians, who resemble the Arabs.” Source: The Buja in Medieval Islamic Mappa Mundi ” p. 157 in the book Views from the Edge Essays in Honor of Richard D. Bulliet (2004). Ibn Hawqul of Iraq 10th c. AD born Nisibis”….
“When they say that Islam started with some pale Arabs, you gotta Show them that we can Trace our ISLAM straight to the Nile Valley Civilization on the walls of Nubia (Sudan)and Khemet (Egypt). It was the JET BLACK man who gave the world ISLAM and this Wolof speaking African brother Proves it. He speaks an ancient form of Arabic that’s not Quraishic Arabic that modern Arabs speak, that the Qur’an was revealed in. Knowledge is here for those who REALLY Seek it!”
“Black Morocco: A History of Slavery, Race and Islam chronicles the experiences, identity, and agency of enslaved black people in Morocco from the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century. It demonstrates the extent to which religion orders society but also the extent to which the economic and political conditions influence the religious discourse and the ideology of enslavement. The interpretation and application of Islam did not guarantee the freedom and integration of black Moroccan ex-slaves into society.”
“It starts with the Islamic legal discourse and racial stereotypes that existed in Moroccan society leading up to the era of Mawlay Isma’il (r. 1672-1727), with a special emphasis on the black army during and after his reign. The first part of the book provides a narrative relating the legal discourse on race, concubinage and slavery as well as historical events and developments that are not well known in printed scholarship and western contexts”.
“The second part of the book is conceptually ambitious; it provides the reader with a deeper sense of the historical and sociological implications of the story being told across a long period of time, from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. Though the strongest element of theses chapters concerns the “black army,” an important component of the discussion is the role of female slaves. One of the problems the historian faces with this kind of analysis is that it must rest on a limited “evidentiary base.” This book has broadened this base and clarified the importance of female slaves in relation to the army and Moroccan society at large.”
“Black Morocco redefines the terms of the scholarly debate about the historical nature of Moroccan slavery and proposes an original analysis of issues concerning race, concubinage and gender, with a special focus on their theoretical aspects. The Moroccan system of racial definition was clearly “racialist” and was in fact a curious inversion of the Western racist model. Whereas in the western model “one drop” of black blood identifies one as black, in the Moroccan model, “one drop” of white blood identifies one as Arab (i.e., privileged).”
“This process helped create a “nationalist” Moroccan Arab majority and at the same time subjugated black ancestry (i.e., those without the “one drop” of Arab blood), seen as having more bearing on the historical antecedents of slavery. It offers a new paradigm for the study of race in the region that will transform the way we approach and understand ethnicity and racial identities in North Africa and most crucially, it helps eliminate the culture of silence — the refusal to engage in discussions about slavery, racial attitudes, and gender issues.”
“Written history about Morocco is generally sillent regarding slavery and racial attitudes, discrimination, and marginalization, and paints a picture of Morocco as free from such social problems. Such problems are usually associated more with slavery and its historical aftermath in the United States.
“The objective of my book is to fill a gap in the scholarship concerning slavery and race in North Africa and to demonstrate the role that Morocco played in slavery’s history in the African diaspora and the Islamic world. The history of slavery in Morocco cannot be considered separately from the racial terror and horrors of the global practice of slavery.”
“For ethnic groups such as the blacks in Morocco, the problems of slavery, cultural and racial prejudices, and marginalization are neither foreign nor introduced by European colonial discourse. Blacks in Morocco have been marginalized for centuries, with the dominant Moroccan culture defining this marginalized group as ‘Abid (slaves), Haratin (a problematic term that generally meant freed black people or formerly enslaved black persons), Sudan (black Africans), Gnawa (black West Africans), Sahrawa (from the Saharan region), and other terms which make reference to the fact that they were black and/or descendants from slaves. My book poses new questions that examine the extent to which religion orders a society, and the extensive influence of secular conditions on the religious discourse and the ideology of enslavement in Morocco.”
“The interpretation and application of Islam did not guarantee the freedom and integration of Black Moroccan ex-slaves into society. The book starts with the legal discourse and racial stereotypes that existed in Moroccan society leading to the era of Mawlay Isma‘il (r. 1672-1727), with a special emphasis on the black army during and after the Mawlay Isma‘il era. I have written the story of the “black army” to inform readers beyond those with narrow specialist knowledge. Hence, the first part of my book provides a narrative relating the legal discourse on race, concubinage, and slavery, as well as historical events and developments that are not well known in printed scholarship and western contexts.”
“The second part of the book, and especially chapters four, five, and six, oscillates between narrative and analysis in order to give the reader a deeper sense of the historical and sociological implications of the story being told across along period of time, from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. Though the strongest element of these chapters concerns the “black army,” an important component of my discussion was the role of female slaves. The short comings of this analysis rest on a limited “evidentiary base.” My goal was to broaden this base and make clear the importance of female slaves in relation to the army and Moroccan society at large.”
The blacks were the ancient poets and learned historians. The celebrated Homer was an Ethiopian, the greatest of the Grecian poets, and a historian. Homer divided the Ethiopians into two parts, and Strabo maintains that the division line to which he alluded was the Red Sea.
The third is that which followed the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet II., a Moor. The Old Testament was written in Africa, and Coelo Syria in the land of Moab, and translated into the Greek tongue, from the Hebrew, by the Egyptian and Jerusalem Jews, by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and Ethiopian, King of Egypt.
Negro is derived from the Latin term niger–meaning black. The following terms and definitions are in the American edition of Dr. Walker’s Dictionary.
Moor–a marsh, a fen; a negro.
Marsh — a fen, a bog, a swamp; a plant.
Moorish –fenny, marshy.
Negro—blackmoor.
In Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary–American edition, by Rev. Joseph Hamilton, M.A., 1810—we find these words thus defined:
Black —dark, cloudy, mournful, wicked.
Black—a negro, the dark color, mourning.
Moor- a negro, marsh, fen, bog.
Moorish or Moory–marshy, fenny.
Negro–a blackmoor, (a Moor).
In the Dictionary for schools, by Dr. Wesbster, American edition, we find these words thus defined:
Negro, an African by birth, or a descendant of one of full blood.
Moor, a black man, a marsh.
Marsh, low ground.
Negro, a blackmoor, a lave, a mean wretch.
Moor, a black, marsh, watery ground.
Marsh, a fen, a bog, a swamp, watery ground.
In Dr. Webster’s definition of the complexion of the skin, he calls it the blood of Africa, or their descendants—as follows:
Mangroon, is all black, a full blood, ( a whole negro.)
Sambo, is three-quarters blood, (three quarters negro.)
Mulatto is one-half blood, (one-half negro.)
Quadroon is one-quarter blood, (one-quarter negro.)
Mesitzo, is half quarter blood, (a half quarter negro.)
“Niger, a Latin word, was formerly used by the Moors–the old Romans, to designate any black, inferior object, &c., a plant, a marsh, flat, moist ground, bog, or animal.”
“Micah, the Morasthite ( a prophet of the Moors,) prophesized in the days of Hezekiah, king of Juda; and spake to all the people of Judah, (the Moors,) saying, thus saith the Lord of host: Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, (a forest).”
“Moserath was built by the Moors, in the Desert of Paran, in the land of Amalek, and was the ancient encampment of Israel in the days of Moses. In the Moorish war of Adel, in Africa, some of the books of Moses were burnt.”
“The appellation of Moor is given to those successors of Mahomet—Pagans, Christians, and Jews—who extended their empire through North Africa, South Europe and the islands of the Mediterranean.”
“The Moors gained the highest reputation, both in Arts and Arms, of all the nations of the East. The mechanic and the fine arts, especially sculpture and painting, were in a very low state in Europe, when the Moors turned their attention to them and cultivated them with great success.”
“The Moors had founded in Africa the empire of Morocco, which was governed by a viceroy, named Muca. Muca sent his general Tariff into Spain, who, in a single memorable engagement, stripped the Gothic king Roderigo of his life and crown, and subdued the country, A.D. 713.
“The Kingdom of the Moors flourished in the south of Spain, for the space of two centuries, in full vigor. Abdalrahman fixed the seat of his government at Cordova, and made it a place of the utmost splendor and magnificance. Spain’s conqueror, satisfied with the sovereignty of the country, left the Goths, who had long been masters of Spain, in possesion of their property, laws, and religion.”
“And by the marrigage of Abdallah the Moor, with the widow of the Gothic king, the two nations became united. In A.D. 732, the Moors penetrated from Spain into France, and defeated the duke of Aquitain.”
“The siege of Constantinople by the Moors occured in A.D. 672. Their fleet passed through the unguarded channel of the Hellespont, and disembarked their troops seven miles from the city. But after a thirty year’s war, and the loss of 30,000 Moslems, they were compelled to releinquish the enterprise. And by a treaty between the two empires, ‘the Faithful’ were reduced to submit to the payment of a heavy annual tribute. This badge of servitude was however shaken off, and the succeeding emperors were unable to enforce it.”
“The Caliph Omar, the third in succession from Mohammed, reduced Jerusalem under his subjection. This Omar was afterwards assasinated at Jerusalem, in 643. The Saracens continued masters of Jersualem till the year 1099, when it was taken by the Crusaders, under Godrey of Bouillon. They founded a new kingdom of which Jerusalem was the captial, and which lasted eighty-eight years, under nine kings. At last this kingdom was utterly ruined by Saladin; and though the Christians once more obtained possesion of the city, they were again obliged to relinquish it. In 1217, the Saracens were expelled by the Turks, who have evern since contined in possesion of it.”
“The word negro is considered insulting and is used as an epithet of contempt to the colored people. It has been long used by our common enemies in America. It is not only insulting but very improper for anyone to make use of it.”
“I am authorized by the word of God to say, whosoever make use of the word negro, applying it to us as a people after the light and truth have been proclaimed, are neither friends to God nor man. I say unto you, in as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Matt. xxxv. 40.”
“To call a person a negro, in the East, is expressive of the hight contempt. The dark Spaniard is proud of his descent from the African Moor, who first taught Europe the use of Arabic figures,&c.”
“The Arab of Africa, the most majestic of men, which his piercing eyes and flowing beard, is the descendant and representative of Abraham.”
“The Arabians a people of color, are the only people who have preserved their descent, their language, independence, manners, and customs from the earliest age; and to whom we are to look for examples of patriarchal life and habits.”
“The tribes, in general, choose to pitch their tents–whether on a hill or plain–so as to form a circular encampment. A collection of black tents thus arranged, is said to present a pleasing and beautiful appearance to the distant traveler.”
“Tents were first made it is thought of skin of animals, fastened to a long pole set perpendicularly into the ground, and the covering was drawn away from the bottom of the pole so as to form a small round dwelling.”
“Subsequently, tents were enlarged and made oblong. Tents were first invented in the family of Jubal–brother of Noah, and son of Lamech. The covering of the large tent,s was made of goat’s hair and was black. This fact beautifully illustrates the passage in the Song of Solomon: “I am black as the tents of Kedar.”
“Kedar was the second son of Ishamel: and Isaiah frequently personifies the Arabians under the name of Kedar. (Isa. 20th and 60th chap.)”
“The curtains of Soloman” was a shelter in Arabia–a cavern wither the Arabian shepherds gathered their heds and flocks at night, for refuge. Tents are very portable dwellings; and are therefore conveniently adapted to the habits of those wandering tribes who occupation leads them to frequent removals to different parts of the country.”
“When they remove from one place to another, they take their tents with them; and when they stop, they erect them again; this they call “pitching their tents.” It apperas, that about the time of the Hebrews bondage in Egpypt, a number of the Arabian tribes passed the Red Sea at the straits of Babelmandel. And the Ludims in ages still earlier, settled in that country.”
“The language of the ancient Arabians, and of the modern Abyssinians, and many of their laws were much the same with those of the ancient Egyptians.”
“The Arabian seem to have been originally divided into a great number of tribes–with kings at the head of each. It is supposed that they worship Ammon, the offspring of Lot, in the person of their chief diety.”
“Mahomet, an Arabian was founder of the religion which is called by his name. He was born in Mecca, Arabia, on the Red Sea, anno domini, 569. The religion of which he was the author, was a system of Asiatic and Arabian voluptousness, grafted on the morality of the Gospel and partly upon some of the rites of Judaism.”
“The Koran which he wrote in detached portions, emobides the substance of his religion, and is the sacred book of the Mussulmen. Mahomet never laid down his arms from the time he captured Mecca, till he subdued all Arabia, and a part of Syrua; impressing his religion wherever he extended his conquests. He died in the midst of his successes, at the age of 61, A.D. Avienna, an Arabian and Physician.”
The Arabic Language.
“The Hebrew language -“–the most ancient in the world, after gradually pervading in, Samaria and Chaldea, was carried into the country of Arabia, by Kahtang, and ancient Arabian king, and descendant of Ishamel; and either formed the root of the Arabic, or, by a commixture with it, both in respect to idiom and verbal expression, gave birth to a language as new as compounded.
“The Arabic is now divided into many dialects, which vary from each other no less in construction than in pronunciation.”
“It is, however, notwithstanding these diversities, so generally understood in Africa and most parts of Asia, that, according to the statement of an able and respectable writer on the subject, a traveler who possess a thorough knowledge of the language, may pass from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope; may cross the widest part of the African continent from east to west; may follow the course of the Nile, and from Morocco to the eastern shores of China, opposite the islands of Japan, and find himself everywhere understood.”
The Moorish Castle.
“This castle was taken from the Moors by the Spanish. It is now called Gibraltar Castle, or by the name of the Spanish Castle. This castle is not very large, but it bears the marks of great age, and has not, in fact, been opened for several hundred years, even from the time it was first taken from the Moors. There are various and marvelous reasons told for keeping it closed One reason was that the sentinels stationed at this castle for eight or ten days in succession, when the relief guard came in the morning, were found dead on the ramparts; and after twenty or thirty men had been thus singularly cut off from the Spanish ranks, it was resolved to search the castle. The Moors say the reason this castle was not opened by the Spanish was that the plague was in it.”
“Livy contemplated Polybius’s generous assessment as he described Hannibal’s exceptional transcultural consciousness, which the Carthaginian exploited: Hannibals’s army was composed of so many men who had nothing in common in terms of language, culture, law, weaponry, dress, physical appearance, and their reasons for fighting and he varied his exhortations accordingly….The Gauls could be aroused by their own particular and instinctive hatred for the Romans.”
“The Ligurians, who had been brought down from their rugged mountain homes, were inspired hopes of victory by the prospect of the rich plains of Italy. The Moors and Numidians Hannibal frightened by telling them how brutal Masinissa’s rule would be. He worked on their various races by inspiring different hopes and different fears. (Livy 2006, 602)”
“Although Polybius and Livy admired Hannibal’s transcultralism, Carthaginians characteristically evinced these sensitivities for centuries given their commercialism and their need to enlist mercenaries. They realized that Carthage’s survival depended on positive and patient interaction with diverse societies. Carthaginian transculturalism was not casual but crucial and compulsory.”
“Carthage remained independent, but hardly a threat to Rome. Instead, Numidia loomed as Carthage’s greatest menace, whose dynamic King Masinissa aspired to unite the Maghrib. The growth of Numidian power, coupled with the pathological fear of a potentially resurgent Carthage, led to another Roman expedition against its archival.”
“Aided by their Numidian allies, the belligerent Romans, commanded by the adopted grandson of Scipio, Scipio Aemilianus, finally breached Carthage’s walls after a determined and desperate defense. The Romans enslaved the survivors and destroyed the city, reputedly plowing its debris underground and then symbolically salting the land to prevent its regeneration. Establishing a new province, Africa Proconsularis, Romans settled permanently in North Africa.”
“Significant Berber kingdoms exercised considerable power and influence by the time the Romans defeated Carthage, notably Numidia. In addition, Mauretania (the country of the Mauri) bordered Numidia on the west and included Morocco. Although the Romans had allied with Berbers, specifically the Massyli, against Carthage, relations between them declined and ultimately led to the Jugurthine War. In the first century BCE, rivalries among Roman commanders contesting for power embroiled North Africa, ending the Berber Kingdoms and also Hellenistic Egypt. For the first time, an imperial state, the Roman Empire, ruled North Africa’s Mediterranean littoral and, in varying degrees, its hinterland from Egypt to the Atlantic.”
“Ibn Odhari refers to al-Kahina as a Malika or a queen. The resistance of Kusayla and al-Kahina remains important regarding contemporary Berber-Arab cultural controversy, such as the use of the Berber language, Tamazight. See also El-Aroui 1990.”
“Phillip Hitti credited the Arabs’ Semitic (refers to language, not ethnicity) kinship with the Phoenicians in expediting their relations with the Berbers who still spoke Punic in some regions: “This explains the seemingly inexplicable miracle of Islam in Arabicizing the language and Islamizing the religion of these [Berbers] and using them as fresh relays in the race toward further conquest” (Hitti 1970, 214). On the other hand, a significant number of bishoprics remained in North Africa three hundred years after the conquest (ibid.,361). Regarding Arabization, see also the section on the Bantu Hilal in this chapter. Musa’s trust in Tariq illustrated an exceptional sensibility between Arab and Berber, which obviously expedited the campaigns in the far Maghrib and Iberia.”
“The extraordinary expansion of the Umayyads also led to problems in North Africa. Animosity intensified between Berbers and Arabs. Berber, especially those who contributed to Arab success in al-Andalus and elsewhere, demanded the application of Muslim equality. Despite legal prohibitions, Arab administrators imposed taxes and even enslaved Berbers, fellow Muslims, and sent them to the East. The renowned Abbasid historian al-Tabari recounted how Berbers questioned the caliph and Umayyad authority: “They make us give them the most beatiful of our daugthers, and we say, ‘We have not found this in the Book or in the Sunna [the customs of the Prophet Muhamad (see below)]. We are Muslims and we wish to know: is this with the approval of the Commander of the Faithful or not?” (Lewis 1974,2:57-58). The Berbers subsequently revolted and in 741, led by a self-proclaimed “caliph” named Maysara, defeated an Arab force sent from Qayrawan. Although Maysar was eventually killed, the Berber revolt spread into Algeria and al-Andalus.”
