Over a thousand years ago, an Afro-Iraqi scholar fought back against a rising tide of racism to document the Black lineage at the heart of early Islam.
History is often written by the victors, but it is also rewritten by changing societal standards. In the centuries following the rise of Islam, a subtle yet profound shift occurred in how the Prophet Muhammad and early Arab figures were depicted. They were slowly "whitewashed," their complexions lightened in texts and cultural imagination to match the sensibilities of later, non-Arab converts.
But nine centuries ago, one renowned scholar stood against this erasure.
His name was Al-Jahiz, a brilliant Afro-Iraqi intellectual of the 9th century Abbasid Caliphate. In his seminal work, "Kitab Fakhr al-Sudan 'ala al-Bidan" (The Book of the Glory of the Blacks over the Whites), he confronted the anti-Black racism of his time and laid out a historical defense of the African presence in the Prophet’s lineage.
Here is how history was distorted, and how Al-Jahiz attempted to set the record straight.
The Context: A Changing Empire
Al-Jahiz lived during a time of massive demographic shifts. The Islamic empire had expanded rapidly, absorbing vast populations of Persians, Romans (Byzantines), and Turks. These groups, who were generally pale-skinned, became the new cultural elite in centers like Baghdad.
With this shift came a rise in shu'ubiyya—movements that emphasized non-Arab identities—and a growing disdain for dark skin, which was associated with the conquered peoples of Africa or the "unsophisticated" original Bedouin Arabs.
Al-Jahiz’s Defense of "Black Blood"
Al-Jahiz, proud of his own Black heritage, wrote Kitab Fakhr al-Sudan as a direct polemic against this racism. He did not argue that the Prophet was "Black" in the modern, Western sense of the word, but rather that he was inextricable from African lineage and that his complexion reflected the norm of original Arabs.
His key arguments included:
The Lineage of Hagar: Al-Jahiz emphasized that Ismail, the ancestor of the Arabs, was born of Abraham and Hagar. Hagar was Egyptian/Coptic, explicitly identified by Al-Jahiz as a Black African woman. Therefore, the "blood" of the Quraysh tribe was inherently mixed with Africa.
The Normality of Darkness: He argued that the original Arabs took pride in dark skin (adam) and that many noble leaders of the Prophet's tribe, the Banu Hashim, were born of African mothers.
The Mechanism of Erasure: A Linguistic Trick
How did the image of a dark-skinned Prophet get turned into the pale-skinned figure imagined by later centuries? The falsification wasn't necessarily malicious lying, but rather a deliberate misinterpretation of changing language.
In classical, pre-Islamic Arabic, color terms meant something very different than they do today:
Abyad (White): In the Prophet’s time, describing someone as abyad did not mean they had pale, Caucasian skin. It meant their skin was "luminous," "clear," or unblemished. It was often used for people with glowing, wheat-colored skin.
Ahmar (Red): This was the term used for actual pale, pink-toned skin, typical of Persians or Romans. The pre-Islamic Arabs often used "The Red People" as a derogatory term for foreigners.
Adam (Dark Brown): This was the standard descriptor for the archetypal Arab complexion.
The Shift: As Persian and Byzantine aesthetics became dominant, later scholars began interpreting the word abyad in Hadiths (sayings and traditions of the Prophet) literally by their new standards. They ignored authentic Hadiths describing the Prophet as Adam (dark) or Asmar (brown) and emphasized those calling him abyad, falsely translating it as pale-white.
Conclusion
Al-Jahiz’s work is a vital historical document. It serves as proof that the whitening of Islamic history was a political and social process that happened over time. By reclaiming the "glory of the Blacks," Al-Jahiz was reminding his society that the foundation of their faith was not built solely by "white" hands, but was deeply rooted in the soil of Africa and Arabia combined.
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