Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Race and Tribe: Difference between revisions

Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) was, among other things, an Islamic jurist, Islamic lawyer, Islamic scholar, Islamic theologian, and hafiz

{{Quote|Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, 14th century|"Therefore, the Negro nation are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because [Negroes] have little [that is essentially] human and have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated."<ref name="Islamic Racism"></ref>}}

{{Quote|Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah|"beyond [known peoples of black West Africa] to the south there is no civilization in the proper sense. There are only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings. They live in thickets and caves, and eat herbs and unprepared grain. They frequently eat each other. They cannot be considered human beings."<ref name="Islamic Racism"></ref>}}

Ibn Sina or ''Avicenna'' (980-1037), was, among other things, a Hafiz, Islamic psychologist, Islamic scholar, and Islamic theologian - many said.

 

Ibn Qutaybah (828-889), was a renowned Islamic scholar from Kufa, Iraq

Ibn al-Faqih (9th century) was a Muslim historian and geographer

{{Quote|Ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadani, Mukhtasar Kitab al-Buldan, 903 AD|"A man of discernment said: The people of Iraq ... do not come out with something between blonde, buff and blanched coloring, such as the infants dropped from the wombs of the women of the Slavs and others of similar light complexion; nor are they overdone in the womb until they are burned, so that the child comes out something between black, murky, malodorous, stinking, and crinkly-haired, with uneven limbs, deficient minds, and depraved passions, such as the Zanj, the Somali, and other blacks who resemble them. The Iraqis are neither half-baked dough nor burned crust but between the two."<ref name="Islamic Racism"></ref>}}

Abu Rayhan al-Biruni (973-1048), was an Islamic scholar and polymath

{{Quote|Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, India, 1030 AD|"The Zanj are so uncivilized that they have no notion of a natural death. If a man dies a natural death, they think he was poisoned. Every death is suspicious with them, if a man has not been killed by a weapon."<ref name="Islamic Racism"></ref>}}

Hudud al-`Alam is a book dedicated to Abu l-Ḥārith Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, a ruler of the local Farighunid dynasty.

Al Jahiz (781–869), was a famous Muslim scholar

{{Quote|Jahiz, Kitab al-Hayawan, vol. 2|"Like the crow among mankind are the Zanj [African Blacks] for they are the worst of men and the most vicious of creatures in character and temperament."<ref name="Islamic Racism"></ref>}}

{{Quote|Jahiz, Kitab al-Bukhala (The Book of Misers)|"We know that the Zanj (blacks) are the least intelligent and the least discerning of mankind, and the least capable of understanding the consequences of actions."<ref name="Islamic Racism"></ref>}}

{{Quote|Jahiz, Al-Bayan wa`l-tabyin, vol. 3|"They [the Shu`ubiyya] maintain that eloquence is prized by all people at all times - even the Zanj, despite their dimness, their boundless stupidity, their obtuseness, their crude perceptions and their evil dispositions, make long speeches."<ref name="Islamic Racism"></ref>}}

Ibn Abi Zayd (922–996), was a Maliki scholar from Al-Qayrawan in Tunisia.

{{Quote||It is disliked to trade in the land of the enemy or the land of the blacks. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said, "Travel is a portion of punishment."<ref>[http://bewley.virtualave.net/RisSpeech.html The Risala of 'Abdullah ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani/ 43.16 Trading abroad] - A Treatise on Maliki Fiqh (Including commentary from ath-Thamr ad-Dani by al-Azhari)(310/922 - 386/996)</ref>}}al-Ibshihi (1388–1446), Egyptian scholar who wrote an encyclopedia covering Islamic law, theology, mysticism, and some other topics.

{{Quote|{{citation|url=https://app.turath.io/book/23802|page=328|author=Shihab al-Din al-Ibshihi|title=al-Mustatraf fi Kul Fan Mustatraf|publisher=al-Maktaba al-Shamila}}; translated in {{citation|title=Race and Slavery in the Middle East: A Historical Enquiry|author=Bernard Lewis|ISBN=978-0-19-506283-0|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1990|pages=92-99|chapter=Image and Stereotype}}|Is there anything more vile than black slaves, of less good and more evil than they'? As for ‎the mulatto, if ‎you show kindness to one of them all your life and in every way, he will not ‎be grateful; and it will be as if ‎you had done nothing for him. The better you treat him, the ‎more insolent he will he; the worse you treat ‎him, the more humble and submissive. I have ‎tried this many times, and how well the poet says: ‘If you honor the honorable you possess ‎him / If you honor the ignoble, he will be insolent.’ It is said that when the [black] slave is ‎sated, he fornicates, when he is hungry, he steals. My grandfather ‎on my mother's side ‎used to say: The worst use of money is bringing up slaves, and mulattoes are even ‎worse ‎and wickeder than Zanj, for the mulatto does not know his father, while the Zanji often ‎knows both ‎parents. It is said of the mulatto that he is like a mule, because he is a mongrel. ‎‎. . . Do not trust a mulatto, ‎for there is rarely any good in him‎}}

Shams al-Dīn Muhammad b. Abī Talib al-Dimashqī (1256-1327), Damascene Imam who wrote on many topics.

 

{{Quote|{{citation|title=Nukhbat al-Dahr fi Ajaib al-Barr wal-Bahr|location=Leipzig|publisher=Harassowitz|editor=A. Mehren|pages=15-17|year=1923}}; translated in {{citation|author=John Hunwick|title=West Africa, Islam, and the Arab World|publisher=Markus Wiener|location=Princeton, NJ|year=2006|page=81}}|The equatorial region is inhabited by communities of blacks who are to be numbered ‎among the savages ‎and beasts. Their complexions and hair are burnt and they are ‎physically and morally deviant. Their ‎brains almost boil from the sun's excessive heat.. . . ‎The human being who dwells there is a crude fellow, with a very black complexion, and ‎burnt hair, unruly, with stinking sweat, ‎and an abnormal constitution, most closely ‎resembling in his moral qualities a savage, or animals.‎}}

Ibn Battuta (1304-1369) Muslim scholar and traveler who wrote about his journeys across the world.

{{Quote|Ibn Battuta in {{citation|title=Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1981|editor1=J.F.P. Hopkins|editor2=Nehemia Levtzion|page=298}}|‎[Writing about West Africans‎:] When I saw it [their reception gift] I laughed, and was long astonished at their feeble ‎‎intellect and their respect for mean things.‎}}Al-Idrisi (1100-1165), Muslim geographer, writer, scientist, cartographer from Almoravid Spain.

{{Quote|{{citation|title=Race and Slavery in the Middle East: A Historical Enquiry|author=Bernard Lewis|ISBN=978-0-19-506283-0|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1990|pages=43-50|chapter=Ventures in Ethnology}}|‎[The southern ‘barbarians’] are more like beasts than like men . . . For those who live furthest to the north between the last of the seven climates and the limits of the inhabited world, the excessive distance of the sun in relation to the zenith line makes the air cold and the atmosphere thick. Their temperaments are therefore frigid, their humors raw, their bellies gross, their color pale, their hair long and lank. Thus they lack keenness of understanding and clarity of intelligence, and are overcome by ignorance and dullness, lack of discernment, and stupidity. Such are the Slavs, the Bulgars, and their neighbors. For those peoples on the other hand who live near and beyond the equinoctial line to the limit of the inhabited world in the south, the long presence of the sun at the zenith makes the air hot and the atmosphere thin. Because of this their temperaments become hot and their humors fiery, their color black and their hair woolly. Thus they lack self-control and steadiness of mind and are overcome by fickleness, foolishness, and ignorance. Such are the blacks, who live at the extremity of the land of Ethiopia, the Nubians, the Zanj and the like. . . . [they are the only people] who diverge from this human ‎order and depart from this rational association are some dwellers in the steppes and ‎inhabitants of the deserts and wilderness, such as the rabble of Bujja, the savages of ‎Ghana, the scum of the Zanj, and their like.}}Ibn Hazm (994-1064) was an Andalusian polymath who wrote on history, Islamic law, Islamic theology, philosophy, and is especially well regarded for his study of the hadiths.

{{Quote|{{citation|title=Race and Slavery in the Middle East: A Historical Enquiry|author=Bernard Lewis|ISBN=978-0-19-506283-0|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1990|pages=28-37|chapter=Prejudice and Piety, Literature and Law}}|God has decreed that ‎the most devout is the noblest even if he be a Negress’s bastard, and that the sinner and ‎unbeliever is at the lowest level even if he be the son of prophets.}}

al-Kirmani (996-1021) was a famous Persian Ismaili theologian and philosopher.

{{Quote|{{citation|title=Race and Slavery in the Middle East: A Historical Enquiry|author=Bernard Lewis|ISBN=978-0-19-506283-0|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1990|pages=54-62|chapter=In Black and White}}|In a philosophical work, he dismisses "the Turks, Zanj, Berbers, and their like" as "by their nature" without interest in the pursuit of intellectual knowledge and without desire to understand religious truth.}}

al-Mutannabi (915-965) was a famous Abbasid court poet from Iraq and one of the most influential poets in the history of Arabic.

{{Quote|{{citation|title=Race and Slavery in the Middle East: A Historical Enquiry|author=Bernard Lewis|ISBN=978-0-19-506283-0|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1990|pages=54-62|chapter=In Black and White}}|‎The slave is no brother to the godly freeman. / even though he be born in the clothes of ‎the free. // Do not buy a slave without buying a stick with him, / for slaves are filthy and ‎scant of good. // I never thought I should live to see the day when a / dog would do me ‎evil and be praised in the bargain, // nor did I imagin that true men would have ceased to ‎exist, / and that the like of the father of bounty, / would still be here, // and that that ‎negro with his pierced camel’s lip / would be obeyed by those cowardly hirelings . . . // . . . ‎Who ever taught the eunuch negro nobility? His / “white” people, or his royal ancestors? ‎‎// or his ear bleeding in the hand of the slave-broker? / or his worth, seeing that for two ‎farthings / he would be rejected? // wretched Kafur is the most deserving of the base / to ‎be excused in regard to every baseness – / and sometimes excusing is a reproach – / and ‎that is because white stallions are incapable / of gentility, so how about black eunuchs?}}{{Quote|{{citation|title=Race and Slavery in the Middle East: A Historical Enquiry|author=Bernard Lewis|ISBN=978-0-19-506283-0|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1990|pages=54-62|chapter=In Black and White}}|‎More stupid than a slave or his mate is he who makes / the slave his master . . . // . . . One ‎who holds you by his word is unlike one who holds / you in his jail – // The morality of the ‎‎[black] slave is bounded by his / stinking pudenda and his teeth. // He does not keep his ‎engagements of today, nor remember / what he said yesterday . . . // . . . Hope for no good ‎from a man over whose head the / slaver’s hand has passed, // And, if you are in doubt ‎about his person or / condition, look to his race. // One who is vile in his coat, was usually ‎vile / in his caul. // He who makes his way beyond his merits, still cannot / get away from ‎his root.}}Qadi Iyad (108301149) was one of the most famous Maliki jurists, also an Imam and qadi in Granada under the Almoravid dynasty.

{{Quote|{{citation|title=al-Shifa bi-ta'rif huquq al-Mustafa|author=Qadi Iyad|publisher=al-Maktaba al-Shamila|url=https://app.turath.io/book/1753|volume=2|page=217, 234}}; translated in {{citation|editor=Aisha Abdarrahman Bewley|Publisher=Madinah Press Inverness|location=Scotland|year=2004|title=Ash-Shifa of Qadi 'Iyad|pages=375, 387|url=https://archive.org/details/MuhammadMessengerOfAllahAshShifaOfQadiIyad}}|[Qadi Iyad repeats this twice:] Ahmad b. Abi Sulayman, the companion of Sahnun, said, 'Anyone who says that the Prophet was black (''aswad'') should be killed.'}}Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani (897-967) was an Arab litterateur, genealogist, poet, and musicologist.

{{Quote|{{citation|title=Race and Slavery in the Middle East: A Historical Enquiry|author=Bernard Lewis|ISBN=978-0-19-506283-0|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1990|pages=92-99|chapter=Image and Stereotype}}|[Retelling an anecdote about "an Arab poet known as al-Sayyid al-Himyari (723-89)":] The Sayyid was my neighbor, and he was very dark. He used to carouse with the young men of the camp, one of whom was as dark as he was, with a thick nose and lips, and a Negroid [''muzannajj''] appearance. The Sayyid had the foulest smelling armpits of anybody. They were jesting together one day, and the Sayyid said to him: "You are a Zanji in your nose and your lips!" whereat the youth replied to the Sayyid: "And you are a Zanji in your color and armpits!"}}