An “Arap (Arab)” According to Vladimir Dal’s 1863 Dictionary, meant a “Black-skinned Person”

Painting of Emperor's palace with an arap serving there. Mihály Zichy/Hermitage Museum

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.”

Source: Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire by Drusilla Dunjee Houston [1926, no renewal]

“arab: to become evening, grow dark

Source: Strong’s Concordance 6150. arab

“An Arap [Arab], according to Vladimir Dal’s 1863 dictionary, meant “a black-skinned person from the hot countries, mainly Africa.”

Painting of Emperor's palace with an arap serving there. Mihály Zichy/Hermitage Museum
Painting of Emperor’s palace with an arap [arab] serving there. Mihály Zichy/Hermitage Museum

Source: How did Africans prosper in Tsarist Russia?

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…”

Source: History of the Moors of Spain By M. Florian

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”

Source: Moloch ANCIENT DEITY

“Arabia Felix (literally: Fertile Arabia; also Ancient GreekEudaemon 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.

Source: Political Leaders of the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa: A … edited by Bernard Reich

“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)

Source: Original Arabs and Strabo’s Geography of Ancient Arabia

From Ottoman Turkish عرب‎ (Arap), from Arabic عَرَب‎ (ʿarab).

Noun arap m (feminine equivalent arapsã)

(1) black person

(2) Arab

Source: Arap

Àrap m (Cyrillic spelling А̀рап) (colloquial) Arab (person of Arab origin.)

From Arabic عَرَب‎ (ʿarab).

Proper noun[edit] “Arap”

(1) A Semitic person, whose antecedents were from Arabia and/or speak Arabic

(2) (dated) A black person

dated means: dated Formerly in common use, and still in occasional use, but now unfashionable;

Portrait of young Abram Hannibal.
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.” 

Source: The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam By David M. Goldenberg

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: Dictionarium Britannicum, or, A more compleat universal etymological … Bailey, N. (Nathan), d. 1742.

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

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

“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.”

Source: Mixed Marriage edited by Margaret Haerens

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.”

Source: Dana Reynolds-Marniche Quoting Strabo Geography Book 17.1

Source: Original Arabs and Strabo’s Geography of Ancient Arabia

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 dyeand 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).”

Source: FEAR OF BLACKNESS SERIES: Guide to the Ethnic Origins of the “Infernal” and “Black Saracen”

“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.”

Source: Dana Reynolds Marniche Facebook Comment

“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”.

Source: Dana Reynolds Marnich Facebook Comment

“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.”

Source: CANAANITES IN THEIR LANDS Part 2 Afro-Asiatic Israel and Aram CANAANITES IN THEIR LANDS Part II Afro-Asiatic Israel and Aram by Dana W. Reynolds

“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.

Source: Dana Reynolds-Marniche Facebook Post

“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, نول د وس رفت برعل ( 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.

Source: “His Daddy was Black. His Momma was Black. So…” A Look at Prophet Muhammad’s Lineage by Wesley Muhammad

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.”

Source: Ezaldeen, Muhammad a.k.a. Lomax Bey Founder Of The Addeynu Allahe Universal Arabic Association

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.”

Source: I’lâmên-nâs: Historical tales and anecdotes of the time of the early Khalifahs. Translated from the Arabic and annotated by Mrs. Godfrey Clerk Unknown Binding – 1873 by Muhammad Diyâb al-Itlîdi (Author)

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”….

Quoting Nathaniel Muhammad

“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!”

Muslims in America: Examining the Facts by Dr. Craig Considine

“The Facts: Unbeknownst to many Americans today, the United States has never existed without the presence of Muslims. Several studies elaborate on how the history of Muslims in America was immeasurably augmented by the transatlantic slave trade. As many as 15 million West Africans were enslaved by Europeans beginning in the 16th century (Diouf, 1998). Among those West Africans, approximately 10 to 20 percent were Muslim (Austin, 1997). Other scholars have suggested that upward of 30 percent of all enslaved Africans were Muslims (Ahmed, 2003).”

“The Muslims who were enslaved and brought to the Americas are thought to have been mostly well learned and literate. Consistent with the basic teachings of Islam, education was paramount to the West African civilizations. Timbuktu, in modern-day Mali, was one of the great centers of learning in the world, with libraries having up to 700 volumes and numerous schools ( well over 150 during the 16th century) ( Dirks, 2006).”

“Most of the Muslim slaves from West Africa were literate in at least Arabic, and it has been estimated that the percentage of literacy in Arabic among African slaves was actually higher than the percentage of literacy in English among their Christian owners (Dirks, 2006).”

“Al Haj Omar Ibn Said, a notable American Muslim slave with family roots in West Africa, is said to have been born and educated in the modern country of Senegal, where he served as an Islamic scholar of the Fula people. He is known for 14 documents that he wrote in Arabic, including an autobiography that detailed his life as a trader, soldier, and faithful Muslim. Said wrote that he performed the hajj, an Arabic word referring to the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, required by all Muslims (Considine, 2017: 185 ), and studied the Qur’an for 25 years before being sold into slavery in 1807 (The Pluralism Project, n.d. ).”

“Said’s handwritten works are now part of the North Carolina Collection in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Today, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, the Omar Ibn Said mosque on Southern Avenue stands as a testament to his legacy. A nearby historical marker notes that Said was a slave, scholar, and African-born author who penned in autobiography in Arabic. Other details of his life on the marker show that he lived in Blady County and worshipped with local Presbyterians. Muslims from the territories of North Africa and the Ottoman Empire are considered to be the second group of Muslims to arrive on U.S. soil.”

“One European Christian, the English sea captain and privateer Sir Francis Drake, commanded 25 to 30 English ships, whose shipmen liberated approximately 500 prisoners at Saint Augustine in Florida between 1585 and 1586. Dirks ( 2006) notes that about 300 or more of these liberated slaves were North African and Turkish galley slaves. North African and Ottoman captives from the Mediterranean region, usually called Moors and Turks, respectively, were needed to perform menial duties for their Spanish overlords in places such a5 Saint Augustine. Further evidence of Muslim galley slaves in the Americas is documented by the Smithsonian, which estimated that many of the Colombian city of Cartagena’s slave population were Muslims.”

In 1586, Drake besieged and captured the town, instructing his men to treat Frenchmen, Turks, and black Africans with respect (Lawler, 201 7). Edward D. Neill, an historian of early American history, wrote in his book The Virginia Carolorum that several shipments of Turkish and Armenian indentured servants, both men and women, were present in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia, in the early 17th century, meaning that the slaves Drake captured were likely of Turkish and Armenian descent (Neill, 1886).”

“These hypotheses are confirmed in recordings by The Virginia Carolorum, which note that several of the Turks in Jam es town included the names “Mehmet the Turk,” “Ahmad the Turk,” “Joseph the Armenian,” and “Sayyan Turk” (Neill, 1886). A 1652 colonial document also refers to a “Turk” in Virginia, who wrote in the Turkish language. In the same year, Governor William Boyd of Virginia referred to a Turkish merchant in a letter (Dirks, 2006).”

“An obscure group known as the Melungeons also had a presence in precolonial and colonial America. Of mixed racial background, the Melungeons settled in the Appalachian region as early as the 17th century (Dirks, 2006). According to Wayne Winkler (2004), the Melungeons are a hybrid group with African, Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean ancestry.”

“A DNA study published in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy in 2012 found that Melungeon families are the offspring of sub-Saharan African men and white women of northern or central European origin. Further details about the ancestry of the Melungeons are provided by Kathy Lyday, a researcher based at Elon University. Lyday claims that a Spanish influence is likely, given that the Southwest and the mountains were explored and settled by Spaniards as far back as Hernando de Soto, a conquistador who marched through the region in 1540 (Neal, 2015 ). These Spaniards likely brought African Muslim slaves with them, and they probably intermarried with Natives.”

Source: Muslims in America: Examining the Facts

Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire

“Timbuktu is a town inhabited by people of various races, but the greater part is made up of Whites, such as Arabs; they are subject to the king of Gao. This town is the entrepot for all goods in transit from the kingdom of Morocco to the kingdom of Gao. The king Mulay Ahmad has a fortress in the province of Lektaoua where everything was exchanged against gold dust that came from these kingdoms. From Timbuktu a Moorish qa id, a renegade, and an Andalusian were sent to Marrakesh with news of what happened during the expedition.”

“They arrived on 1 June of the present year 1591. Great celebrations were held to mark this happy success. But the king, although proud to be the first king of Morocco to have carried his victorious arms as far as Guinea, felt much resentment at Jawdar’s having withdrawn from Gao without having first constructed a fortress, as he had orders to do; or rather that, having withdraw, he had done so without having previously taken some good hostages from the black king as surety for his carrying out his promises. But in fact, it is within his power to do so or not to do so.”

“It is said that two months journey from Gao, in the interior lands, there is another kingdom of the Blacks that is called Bornu, whose king is very powerful. The Turks, having marched by way of Egypt to conquer this kingdom suffered so much from thirst while crossing the sandy deserts, that when attacked by the king of Bornu in this exigency, they could not defend themselves because of their thirst, and were beaten. Some who survived received such good treatment from the king that they remained in his service.”

“Through the industry of these individuals, and with the arms they took off the others, he has armed about five hundred musketeers, who, together with the numerous troops of his kingdom, make him very formidable in these regions of Guinea. It has been learned that this kingdom borders on some kingdoms of black Christians, who have been recently converted by the Portuguese during the discoveries they have made in Guinea. The judgment made about this expedition by natives of the kingdom of Morocco who have experience of these regions is as follows.”

“There are various opinions about this expedition. Some think it is very advantageous for the king of Morocco, because besides the glory he gets from carrying his victorious arms into Guinea–something none of his predecessors dared do because of the difficulty of the route, the length of the journey and lack of water they think he will get a lot of gold from this conquest, by means of which he will enhance his greatness.”

Source: Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Saʻdī’s Taʼrīkh Al-Sūdān Down to 1613 By ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh al- Saʿdī…

The old Moorish City is full of history written in Stones, Archives, and Races

Oran. Negro Village. Grand Mufti. Co 19, 1985 conference.

(Arrived in Oran, February 1985.)

“The old Moorish city is full of history written in stones, archives, and races. It was alternatively the great stronghold of Moors, Turks, and Spaniards, during centuries of expeditions, invasion, warfare, and piracies. Its physiognomy to-day is a composite: Moorish, Spanish, and European, the foreign population predominating over the native, making the aspect of the city much less picturesque, to say nothing of the value of its primitive race. The result of the infinite crossing is certainly not in this present generations at Nature’s best. The pure Arab or Moorish type is unfortunately obliterated among this mottled mixture from every African latitude with that of other continents.”

“It must be explained here that since the conquest of Algeria by the French, the natives: Arabs, Moors, Kabyles, and the conglomerate mass of all other African tribes, as well as Jews, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, etc., who are native-born residents, are all, necessarily, subject; but citizenship is optional, save to the French-born. Mussulmans form the great majority of the inhabitants, there being almost as many French Moslem subjects in Africa as there are citizens in France, i.e., thirty million. Once the oath of citizenship is taken, they must, of course, abide by French law, the Code Napolean; while the Moslem subjects are governed by the laws of Muhammad, the Code of the Koran, of which they are most tenacious, living and dying by it. While the Code of Napolean is based upon the Roman legislature, the Koran is a faithful exponent of Mosaic Law, added to which are rules and regulations by the Prophet concerning the details of life: civil, religious, public and private. There is, therefore, little need for legislation; and this banishes simplicity and unity, as well as peace, to its world. It is the adjustment and reconciliation of the two codes which renders legislation and magistrature very difficult in all the French colonies, and all other Christian nations whose colonies contain follower of Mohammed. Though Moslems are a conquered race throughout the different great and small French colonies in Africa and the Protectorate of Tunis, their religion is scrupulously respected and even provided for by the French government: for instance, all that relates to worship, to the family, marriage, property, etc., is left entirely in the hands of the Cadi (the Moslem Magistrate or judge). Citizenship gives the right of suffrage to the subject and prohibits polygamy, which under French law, of course, is bigamy, and is punished with severity, while Moslem subjects who are not citizens following the patriarchs are free to have from one to four wives if they like. It is with great satisfaction, we state at once, that this great evil-the legacy of our common ancestors and patriarchs is rapidly disappearing throughout Islam, and especially with progressive culture and civilization.” 

“France had long been an ally of the Arabs in North Africa against the Turks and Moors, but in 1830 arose the warlike difference between her and the great Arab Emir, Abd-el-Kader, who sought to make Tlemecen his capital, as it was of its ancient sultans.”

Source: Jerusalem through the lands of Islam: among Jews, Christians, and Moslems By Emilie Jane Butterfield Meriman Loyson

Africas Legacies Of Urbanization: Unfoldi: Unfolding Saga of a Continent

 

“In the interior of western Africa around the same time, Askia the Great, of Mande ethnicity, established a new ruling dynasty in Songhai by overthrowing the preceding Lemta Tuareg dynasty associated with Sonni Ali. As Songhai expanded, a number of new towns were established or came under its control. One of its early conquest involved Kebbi, a small kingdom lying between the middle Niger and Hausaland whose capital at Same [northwestern Nigeria] was surrounded by seven stone walls (Bovill 1958: 105, 107-108).”

“Aska’s conquest took his empire to the west of Bornu [northeastern Nigeria]. Songhai’s expansion of greatest importance involved its conquest of Hausaland [Niger, northern Nigeria], located at southern end of ancient caravan routes that rant to Timbuktu [Mali] as well as Oualate and Taghaza [southeastern Mauritania]. When King Sonni Ali came to power in 1464 as founder of Songhai, with its capital at Gao [Mali], ancient Mali perceived Songhai as far more menacing threat to it well being than occasional incursions by Europeans along Africa’s Atlantic coast suggest that European incursions in coastal areas initially were without great consequence on the jockeying for economic and political advantage among indigenous states deep in the interior. The Portuguese, Spaniards, and Turks were not the only peoples obsessed with discovering the source of Sudanese gold in the early 16th century. It was because of a similar obsession that the sultan of Moroccan dispatch Leo Africanus south of the Sahara on two reconnaissance trips during this period. In order for Askia to maintain his hold on these Hausa city-states, he also had seized nearby Agadez [Niger] and expelled much of its Tuareg leadership.”

“Even well north of the Sahara, it was only with ambivalence and in stages that Europeans and Africans increasingly began to view each other as rivals and opponents as well as trading partners. It was against this background for example that in Morocco by 1511, Sufi opposition developed against that country’s Wattasid dynasty that rule from Fez largely as a result of its habit of making treaties and trading with Europeans. In 1525, this opposition was sufficiently strong that a Said dynasty managed to eject the Wattasides from Marrakesh. By 1541, Morocco Sadi dynasty was able to force the Portuguese from most of the ports that were occupying along the Atlantic coast of Morocco. As Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur greatly feared attack from several of his European neighbors as well as from Turkey, which had a presence in nearby Algiers and also felt threatened by European involvement along the Atlantic coast of western Africa south of the Sahara, he made the fateful decision in the late 16th century to order an attack intended to capture the Songhai Empire.”

In addition to Moulay Ahmad al-Mansur’s hope of gaining control of Songhais gold mines, he looked forward to controlling its most important cities namely Timbuktu and Gao. While a minority of the 4,000 troops that he sent on this mission were of Moorish and Moroccan background, its majority was composed of soldiers of various European ethnicities, including Maltese, Spaniards, Greeks, French, and English. In general, these European soldiers fell into the following categories, renegades, prisoners of war, European slaves in Africa, and mercenaries, and they were placed under the command of a Spaniard eunuch named Judar or Djouder, who the Moroccans had captured as an infant and converted to Islam.

Beginning with Judar Pasha, it was in this way that between 1591 and 1654, a number of Moroccan pashas of Timbuktu who were nominally subject to Marrakesh came to rule at Timbuktu alongside puppet Songhai Askias. At the latest, the death of Askia Nuh in 1597 effectively brought to an end to an independent Songhai Empire. In addition to transforming Songhai’s leaders into mere pashas of Morocco, the subjugation of Songhai provided a cover for the relocation of multitudes of its citizens from Songhai to Morocco, where during a long period many of them were reduced to slaves. Though treated differently from these common slaves among their compatriots, many people belonging to Songhai’s considerable intelligentsia were forced to remain in Morocco for a time as prisoners or hostages.

Tuaregs took advantage of the fall of Songhai to expand their control over populations scattered from the Niger to Lake Chad.

Even while Morocco was intervening in Sudan, it began to feel the impact of European hostility toward Moors spilling into its own cities Beginning in 1609 and continuing for at least five years, for example, Moroccan cities received many former Muslims from Spain who, on being expelled from Europe, settled in such cities as Rabat and Sala or Sale. Motivating their expulsion from Spain was widespread suspicion on the part of many Spaniards that many Moriscos (i.e. Christian Moors) were clandestine adherents to Islam despite their having converted to Christianity under pressure.

In many of the larger cities of Maghreb during the 17th and 19th centuries, were between 10 and 20 percent of the populations consisted of slaves, that situation had no quantitative equal in Europe. Still, the activities of European pirates and slave traders in Europe and elsewhere were as barbarous as the various oppressive systems that were indigenous to Africa.

In 1628, or three years after the accession to the English throne of Charles I, Britain still hoped that Roe’s treaty might provide a solution to piracy between it and such ports of northwestern Africa as Algiers, Tunis, Tetuan, and Sale. In the 1630s and 1640s, a large proportion of the Corsair ships raiding the coast of England came from Sale, piloted through the English Channel by Irish or English captives. In 1631, Morat Rais, who was renegade working for the Arabs though he was of Dutch ancestry, raided the Irish town of Baltimore, and Africans from the city of Sale took 500 English captives in 1636 leading to a retaliatory English expedition on Sale under Captian William Rainsborough the following year…”

“Between 1712 and mid-century, the Arma descendants of mostly European troops that Morocco had sent south of the Sahara to overthrow the Songhai Empire had lost their grip on power in this area that Segou, by now a real empire, seized large areas previously taken by Morocco from Songhai, including the cities of Bamako, Jenne, and Timbuktu.”

Citing Africas Legacies Of Urbanization: Unfolding Saga of a Continent By Stefan Goodwin