Read Online Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry by Bernard Lewis - Free Book Online

saying, "I am a black
man. Some of you may find me offensive. I shall therefore sit and eat apart."
They were embarrassed but arranged for him to take his food (and later his
wine) separately. Then slave girl singers appeared, and Said ibn Misjah
praised their performance. Singers and owners alike were affronted by the
impudence of "this black man" in daring to praise the girls, and he was warned
by the other companions to mend his manners. Later his identity was revealed
and then all vied in seeking the company of the famous singer.'s These episodes show both the nature and the limits of social discrimination against the
dark-skinned.
    After the eighth century, there are few identifiable black poets in Arabic
literature, and their blackness is not a significant poetic theme. There were a
few poets in the black lands converted to Islam who composed in Arabic; but
most black African Muslims preferred to use Arabic for scholarship, as European Christians used Latin, and their own languages for poetry. In the central
lands, though the flow of black, as of other, slaves continued into the twentieth century, the school of self-consciously black poets came to an end. Few of
the slaves were sufficiently assimilated or educated to compose poetry in
Arabic, while the few Arabic poets of African or part-African ancestry were
too assimilated to see themselves as black and therefore other."
    The whole question of blackness was discussed in a special essay by Jahiz
of Basra (ca. 776-869), one of the greatest prose writers in classical Arabic
literature and said by some of his biographers to be of partly African descent." Entitled "The Boast of the Blacks against the Whites,"" the essay
purports to be a defense of the dark-skinned peoples-and especially of the
Zanj, the blacks of East Africa-against their detractors, refuting the accusations commonly brought against them and setting forth their qualities and
achievements, with a wealth of poetic illustration. They are strong, brave,
cheerful, and generous-and not, as people say, "because of weakness of
mind, lack of discernment, and ignorance of consequences." Another false
charge is stupidity. To those who ask, "How is it that we have never seen a
Zanji who had the intelligence even of a woman or of a child?" the answer,
says Jahiz, is that the only Zanj they knew were slaves of low origin and from
outlying and backward areas. If they judged by their experience of Indian
slaves, would they have any notion of Indian science, philosophy, and art?
Obviously not-and the same is true of the black lands. Jahiz also defends the
equality of blacks as marriage partners and notes the paradox that discrimination against them first arose after the advent of Islam: At is part of your
ignorance," he makes the blacks say, "that in the time of heathendom [i.e., in
pre-Islamic Arabia] you regarded us as good enough to marry your women,
yet when the justice of Islam came, you considered this wrong." Another
point is that the blacks are more numerous than the whites-certainly true, since Jahiz, along with some other Arabic authors of the ninth and tenth
centuries, includes the Copts, the Berbers, and the inhabitants of India, Southeast Asia, and China. A curious quotation follows: "There are more blacks
than whites, more rocks than mud, more sand than soil, more salt water than
sweet water." In conclusion, Jahiz argues against the common equation of
blackness with ugliness, and insists that black is beautiful-in nature, in the
animal kingdom, and in man. In any case, blackness is not a curse or punishment, as is commonly alleged, but a result of natural conditions:

    This exists in all things. Thus we see that locusts and worms on plants are
green, and we see that the louse is black on a young man's head, white if his
hair whitens, red if it is dyed.
    Jahiz was a great humorist and satirist, and the reader of his defense of the
blacks may sometimes wonder whether its