[wonceinee]

Asalam alaikum

Thank you very much for your advise regarding this crucial issue. This Jamaican brother is agnostic and I am now only in contact with him via email. I have sent the first link given to me on this forum regarding Muhammad (saw) features.


1)What information would be most suitable to send via email to him?


There is also another Muslim brother of Indian origins who is not practicing. But, he is very stressed by dreams which display murder and killings. I told the brother that this is the work of Shaytan with your intelligence. Is this a suitable response to such question. He did ask me a few q's regarding Shaytan and his existence, I did reply by mentioning about Ibis's first ordeal. I alhumdulilah, provided him with authentic sites which he was amused with and loads of info from me as well.

Salaam

Brother my recommendation to you is please study the first 13 years of Quran revelation in mecca, this is the foundation to give dawah. All the questions that people pose are secondary due to thier kafir influence, you believe in Allah (swt) and focus on issues of faith first, thier nothing more important than LA ILAHA ILL ALLAH.

[pharweqto]

I am an Arab of Turkish descent so I suppose I am a "white" Arab. I am also a classic Islamic scholar. The Prophet Mohammed was BLACK. All the early Islamic literature described him and his family as Black. Remember, at that time there was no prejudice against being Black, and people who are called "white" today were actually looked down upon and were the slaves. Read the following:

In his work, Islam’s Black Legacy: Some Leading Figures (1993), Mohammed Abu-Bakr
includes among 62 leading Black figures of Islam the prophet Muhammad himself.1 Abu-Bakr rightly
notes:
"According to Muslim tradition, Muhammad descended in a straight line from Ishmael’s second son Kedar
(Arabic: Qaidar), whose name in Hebrew signifies ‘black’…From the sons of Kedar inhabiting the northern
Arabian desert, sprang the noblest tribe in Arabia, the Koreish (Quraysh), the tribe from which Muhammad
descended."2

As we have also discussed above, the Arabian Qedar were a black tribe akin to the equally black
Nabataeans, and these two were in someway related to the Quraysh, the black tribe par excellence of Mecca.
As Robert F. Spencer remarks: “It is said that the Quraysh explained their short stature and dark skin by
the fact that they always carefully adhered to endogamy.”3 Al-Jahiz (d. 869), the important Afro-Iraqi
scholar of ninth century Baghdad, noted in his Fakhr al-sådan ala al-bidan, “The Boast of the Blacks over
the Whites”:

The ten lordly sons of Abd al-Muããalib were deep black (dalham) in color and big/tall (Dukhm). When
Amir b. al-Tufayl saw them circumambulating (the Ka'ba) like dark camels, he said, “With such men as these
is the custody of the Ka'ba preserved.” Abd Allah b. Abbas was very black and tall. Those of Abå Talib’s
family, who are the most noble of men, are more or less black (såd).”4

This report is important for our discussion, not only because Abd al-Muããalib and his ten black
sons were pure Arabs, but also because they are also the family of the Prophet, Abd al-Muããalib
being his paternal grandfather.5 The Syrian scholar and historian al-Dhahabi (d. 1348) too reported
that Abd Allah b. Abbas, Muhammad’s first cousin, and his son, Ali b. Abd Allah, were “very
dark-skinned.”6 Ali b. Abu Talib, first cousin of the Prophet and future fourth caliph, is described by
al-Suyuti and others as “husky, bald…pot-bellied, large-bearded…and jet-black (shadid al-udma).”7
Ali’s son, Abå Jafar Muhammad, according to Ibn Sad (d. 845), described Ali thusly: “He was a
black-skinned man with big, heavy eyes, pot-bellied, bald, and kind of short.”8

This convergence of blackness, nobility and Qurayshi ethnicity is further demonstrated in these lines
attributed to the seventh century CE Qurayshi poet, al-Fadil b. al-Abbas, called al-Akhdar al-LahabÊ
“The Flaming Black”. al-Fadil is the Prophet Muhammad’s first cousin and he said: “I am the blackskinned
one (al-Akhdar). I am well-known. My complexion is black. I am from the noble house of the
Arabs.”9 Ibn Maníår (d. 1311) notes the opinion that al-Akh·ar here means aswad al-jilda, ‘Blackskinned’,
and signifies that al-Fadil is from khaliß al-arab, the pure Arabs, “because the color of most
of the Arabs is dark (al-udma).”10 Similarly Ibn BarrÊ (d. 1193) said also: “He (al-Fadil) means by this
that his genealogy is pure and that he is a pure Arab (arabÊ mahd) because Arabs describe their color as
black (al-aswad).”11 Thus, al-Fadil’s blackness (akhdar) is the visual mark of his pure, Qurayshi
background, being born of a pure Arab mother and father.
The Quraysh consisted of several sub-clans. Abd al-Muããalib and his descendents, including
Muhammad, belonged to the Banå Hashim. Henry Lammens takes notice of “les Hasimites, famille où
dominait le sang nègre” (“the Hashimites, the family where Black blood dominated”).12 Lammens
remarks that they are “généralement qualifies de ??? = couleur foncée” (“generally described as adam =
dark colored”). But the Banå Hashim were not the only sub-clans noted for their blackness. The Banå
Zuhra, the tribe from which the prophet’s mother, Amia bt. Wahb, hailed, was likewise noted for its
blackness. See for example the famous Saad ibn Abi Waqqas (d.ca. 646), cousin of Amia and uncle of
Muhammad. He is described as very dark, tall and flat-nosed.13 Muhammad, it should be noted, was
quite proud of his uncle Saad whose military contributions we shall discuss below. We are told that once
Muhammad was sitting with some of his companions and Saad walked by. The prophet stopped and
taunted: “That’s my uncle. Let any man show me his uncle.”14
This blackness of the Quraysh tribe is not insignificant to the religious history of Islam. The Quraysh
were the custodians of the cult of the Ka'ba in pre-Qur?anic Mecca and at religious ceremonies they
would declare naÈnu ahlu ÏÏahi (“We are the People of AÏÏah”) and throughout Arabia they were known as
ahlu ÏÏah, the People of AÏÏah.15 In other words, the black tribe par excellence was also the AÏÏah-tribe par
excellence and custodians of the cult of the Black God. Nevertheless, or rather as a consequence,
Muhammad’s greatest struggle was with his own kinsmen, this black, AÏÏah-venerating Quraysh tribe. In
the end, however, it would be the black Quraysh that became the rulers of Islam, at least in the short
term. Not only were the Sunni caliphs drawn from them, but the Shiite Imams, descendents of the black
Ali b. Abå Talib, were likewise black QurayshÊ Arabs.16
One would thus expect the Qurayshi prophet Muhammad to be black too, especially since he
reportedly claimed to be a pure Arab for the house of Hashim17: this would make him very black-skinned
like the pure Arabs from that tribe. Muhammad’s pedigree actually demands this as his whole immediate
family tree were pure, black-skinned Qurayshi Arabs. I quote again Al-JaÈií’s important note in his Fakhr
al-sådan ala al-bidan:

The ten lordly sons of Abd al Muããalib were deep black (dalham) in color and big/tall (dukhm). When
Amir b. al-Tufayl saw them circumambulating (the Ka'ba) like dark camels, he said, “With such men as these
is the custody of the Ka'ba preserved.” Abd Allah b. Abbas was very black and tall. Those of Abå Talib’s
family, who are the most noble of men, are more or less black (såd).”18
Abd al Muããalib (d. 578) was the prophet’s grandfather and Abd Allah, one of his ten ‘deep black’
sons, was Muhammad’s father. Another deep black son, al-Abbas, was father to the above mentioned
Abd Allah b. Abbas, described as black, and al-Fa·l b. al-Abbas, whose blackness was legendary.
These were the uncle and first cousins of Muhammad. Abå Talib, another deep black uncle, was father
to Ali b. Abd Allah, another first cousin of the prophet who was described as jet-black. All of these
father-son pairs shared this deep blackness, what about the Abd Allah - Muhammad pair? We would
expect the same, unless Muhammad’s mother made a mitigating contribution. But this is not likely.
Amina, the prophet’s mother, was an Arab from the Qurayshi sub-clan Banå Zuhra, which was a black
clan. Amina’s cousin and Muhammad’s maternal uncle, Saad ibn Abi Waqqas, also from Banå Zuhra,
was very dark, tall and flat-nosed.19

But Muhammad had more than just Qurayshi blackness running through his veins. His great, great
grandfather was Abd Manaf who bore with $tika bt. Murra al-SulaymÊ the prophet’s great
grandfather \ashim. That is to say that the prophet’s great, great grandmother was from the jet-black
Banå Sulaym. \ashim, the great grandfather, bore with Salma bt. Amrå ’l-KhazrajÊ the prophet’s
grandfather, Abd al Muããalib. This means that his paternal great grandmother was from the black
Medinese tribe Banå Khazraj. Abd al Muããalib stayed within the Quraysh, but he bore the prophet’s
father Abd Allah with Faãima bt. Amrå al-MakhzåmÊ, from the exceptionally black Makhzåm
clan.20 Muhammad’s maternal lineage is also mixed with non-QurayshÊ black Arab blood. His mother,
Amina, is the daughter of Wahb b. Abd Manaf b. Zuhra whose mother (Amina’s grandmother) is
said to be a SulaymÊ, another $tika bt. Al-Awqaß.21 The black Sulaym are thus considered the
maternal uncles of the prophet and he is therefore reported to have said: “I am the son of the many
$tikas of Sulaym.”22 This all indicates that Muhammad’s lineage is a mix of QurayshÊ, SulaymÊ, and
KhazrajÊ blackness.

We thus have every reason to expect Muhammad to be black-skinned, and no reason to believe
anything else was possible. We in fact find him described as such in TirmidhÊ’s Shama?il al-
Muhammadiyyah. The following is reported on the authority of the famous Companion of the prophet,
Anas b. Malik:

The Messenger of Allah… was of medium stature, neither tall nor short, of a goodly build. His hair was
neither curly nor completely straight. He had a dark brown (asmar) complexion and when he walked he leant
forward [walking briskly].23

???? asmar is a dark brown as evidenced from other formations from the same root24: samar “darkness,
night”; al-garra al-samra? “the black continent (Africa)”.25 With the pedigree that he had, any other
complexion for Muhammad would be incomprehensible. Yet, the same Anas b. Malik who informed us
of the dark brown complexion of the prophet, also informs us thusly:
While we were sitting with the Prophet in the mosque, a man came riding on a camel. He made his camel
kneel down in the mosque, tied its foreleg and then said: “Who amongst you is Muhammad?” At that time
the Prophet was sitting amongst us (his companions) leaning on his arm. We replied, “This white man
reclining on his arm.”26

There are several other reports that describe Muhammad as ???? abya· white. How can the same
man (Anas b. Malik) describe another (Muhammad) as both of dark brown complexion and as white?
The problem, it turns out, is not in these texts but in our modern, Western inability to appreciate the premodern
Arabic color classification system. We assume that terms such as white, green, blue, and red
meant the same to the early Arabs that they do to us today. But as Moroccan scholar Tariq Berry explains
in his book, The Unknown Arabs, this is simply not the case:
The term white can be very confusing to those reading about the description of people of the past because, in the past,
when Arabs described someone as white, they meant something entirely different from what is meant today. In the past,
when the Arabs described someone as white, they meant either that he had a pure, noble, essence or that he had a nice,
smooth complexion without any blemishes. They meant he had a black complexion with a light-brownish undertone.27
Berry’s point is confirmed by the appropriate Classical Arabic/Islamic sources. Ibn Maníår affirmed that
“When the Arabs say that a person is white, they mean that he has a pure, clean, fautless integrity…They
don’t mean that he has white skin…”28 Similarly, al-Dhahabi informs us that “When the Arabs say a
person is white, they mean he is black with a light-brownish undertone.”29 Particularly important was the
observation of the 9th century CE Arabic scholar Thalab, who tells us that : “The Arabs don’t say that a
man is white because of a white complexion. White to the Arabs means that a person is pure, without any
faults. If they meant his complexion was white, they said ‘red’ (aÈmar).”30 Indeed, as David Goldenberg
notes, ‘white ???? ’ in pre-modern Arabic was about “luminosity, not chromaticity.”31 That is to say, ????
connoted brilliance, not paleness of skin. The latter was described as ‘red’ ? ??? aÈmar, which is how non-
Arab whites such as Persians and Byzantines were described.32 In other words, what we call white today
the early Arabs called red, and what they called white often was what we would today call black!
It is certain that Muhammad could not have been what we consider white today; he could not have
been fair or pale-skinned at all, for a pale-skinned Arab was such an oddity that the prophet could not
have claimed be a pure QurayshÊ Arab. The seventh century Arab from the tribe of Nakha?i, Shurayk al-
Qa·i, could claim that, because it was such a rare occurrence “a fair-skinned Arab is something
inconceivable and unthinkable.”33 So too did al-Dhahabi report that: “Red, in the language of the people
from the Hijaz, means fair-complexioned and this color is rare amongst the Arabs.”34 On the other hand,
the Arabs prided themselves on being black, is conscious contrast to the pale-skinned non-Arabs. Al-JaÈií
could still claim in the 9th century:
????? ???? ????? ?????
al-arab tafkhar bi-sawad al-lawn
“The Arabs pride themselves in (their) black color”35

These noble Black Arabs even detested pale skin. Al-Mubarrad (d. 898), the leading figure in the Basran
grammatical tradition, is quoted as saying: “The Arabs used to take pride in their darkness and blackness
and they had a distaste for a light complexion and they used to say that a light complexion was the
complexion of the non-Arabs”. Part of the reason for this distaste is that the slaves at the time were largely
from pale-skinned peoples, such that aÈmar “red” came to mean “slave” back then, just as abid
“servant/slave” means black today in the now white Muslim world. As Dana Marniche observes:
Anyone familiar with the Arabic writings of the Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian historians up until the 14th century
knows that this is also their description of the early ‘pure’ Arab clans of the Arabian peninsula… [i.e. “blacker
than the blackest ink – no shred of white on them except their teeth.”]…The irony of history is that early
Arabic-speaking historians and linguists made a distinction between the Arabs in Arabia and the fair-skinned
peoples to the north; and contrary to what may be fact in our day, in the days of early Islam, those called
‘Arabs’ looked down condescendingly on fair-skinned populations and commonly used the phrase ‘fairskinned
as a slave’ when describing individuals in tribes in the peninsula that were pale in complexion…Of
course, today due mainly to slavery and conversion of peoples to the ‘Arab’ nationality, the opposite is
thought to be true by many in the West.

A red or pale-skinned Muhammad would thus have been a profound oddity in 7th century Arabia and
would have had little chance of success amongst the proud, black Meccans and Medinese. The Meccan
objectors to his message accused of some of everything, but never of being a non-Arab! There is absolutely no
reason to believe he was pale-skinned other than much later representations that coincide with a major
demographic change it the Muslim world, a change that brought with it a strong anti-black ideology.36
We thus have every reason to accept the truth of Anas b. Malik’s description of the prophet as dark
brown (asmar) and to conclude that, as his black cousins Ali and al-Fa·l resembled their black fathers (his
black uncles), he resembled his black father, especially since his mother’s side was black as well.37


FOOTNOTES
1 Abu-Bakr, Islam’s Black Legacy, Chapter 1. See also Rogers, Sex and Race, I: 95 who states that “Mohamet, himself, was to all accounts a
Negro.” Ben-Jochannon too accepted that Muhammad was “in the family of the Black Race”. African Origins, 237.
2 Abu-Bakr, Islam’s Black Legacy, 1.
3 Robert F. Spencer, “The Arabian Matriarchate: An Old Controversy,” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 8 (Winter, 1952) 488.
4 Al-JaÈií, Fakhr al-sådan ala al-bidan, in Risa"il Al-JaÈií, 4 vols. (1964/1384) I:209.
5 See below.
6 al-Dhahabi, Siyar, V:253
7 Al-Suyåãi, Tarikh al-khulafa (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1975) 186. On shadid al-udma as ‘jet-black’ see Berry, Unknown, 54.
8 Ibn Sad, al-Tabaqat al-kubra (Beirut: Dar Sadir) 8:25. On Ali as short and dark brown see Henry Stubbe, An Account of the Rise and
Progress of Muhammadanism (1911) XX; I.M.N. al-Jubouri, History of Islamic Philosophy – With View of Greek Philosophy and
Early History of Islam (2004), 155; Philip K Hitti, History of the Arabs, 10th edition (London: Macmillan Education Ltd, 1970) 183.
9 Ibn Maníår, Lisan al-arab, s.v. ???? IV:245f.
10 Ibn Maníår, Lisan al-arab, s.v. ???? IV:245; E.W. Lane, Arabic-English, I: 756 s.v. . ???
11 Ibn Maníår, Lisan al-arab, s.v. ???? IV:245.
12 Études sur le siècle des Omayyades (Beirut: Imprimerie Calholique, 1930) 44.
13 al-Dhahabi, Siyar, 1:97.
14 Abd al-RaÈman Rafat al-Basha, ‘uwar min Èayat al-‘aÈabah (Beirut: Mu?assasat al-Risalah, 1974-75) 287.
15 Uri Rubin, “The Ilaf of Quraysh: A Study of såra CVI,” Arabica 31 (1984): 165-188; Margoliouth, Mohammed, 19.
16 Berry, Unknown Arabs, 62-65.
17 He is supposed to have described himself as “Arab of the Arabs, of the purest blood of your land, of the family of the Hashim and of the tribe of
Quraysh.”Quoted in Chandler, “Ebony and Bronze,” 285.
18 Al-JaÈií, Fakhr al-sådan ala al-bidan, in Risa"il Al-JaÈií, 4 vols. (1964/1384) I:209.
19 al-Dhahabi, Siyar, 1:97.
20 On the significance of these matrilateral listings in Muhammad’s genealogy see Daniel Martin Varisco, “Metaphors and Sacred History: The
Genealogy of Muhammad and the Arab ‘Tribe’,” Anthropological Quarterly 68 (1995): 139-156, esp. 148-150.
21 Ibn Athir, al-Nihaya fÊ gharÊb al-ÈadÊth (Cairo, 1385/1965) III:180 s.v. -t-k; Lecker, Banå sulaym, 114.
22 Muhammad b. Yåsuf al-‘aliÈÊ al-ShamÊ, Subul al-huda wa-‘l-rashad fÊ sÊrat khayr al-bad (Cairo, 1392/1972) I:384-85; Lecker,
Banå sulaym, 114-115.
23 Al-TirmidhÊ, Shama?il al-Muhammadiyyah, 2.
24 J M. Cowan (ed.), Hans Wehr Arabic-English Dictionary 4th edition (Ithica: Spoken Language Services, Inc., 1994) 500 s.v. .???
25 Berry, Unknown Arabs, 49 notes: “When the Arabs of the past said that a person was brown, they meant that he was dark-skinned; close to
black, which is actually a dark shade of brown.”
26 Sahih al-Bukhari vol. 1 no. 63:
27 Berry, Unknown Arabs, 49.
28 Ibn Maníår, Lisan al-Arab 7:124.
29 Al-Dhahabi, Siyar alam al-nubala (Beirut: Risala Establishment, 1992) 2:168.
30 Ibn Maníår, Lisan al-Arab. 4:210.
31 Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 93.
32 Goldziher, Muslim Studies, 1:268.
33 Ibn Abd Rabbih, al-Iqd al-farid (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiya, 1983) 8:140.
34 Al-Dhahabi, Siyar, 2:168.
35 Al-JaÈií, Fakhr al-sådan ala al-bidan, 207. See also Goldziher, Muslim Studies, 1:268 who notes that in contrast to the Persians who are
described as red or light-skinned (aÈmar) the Arabs call themselves black.
36 See below.
37 Chandler, “Ebony and Bronze,” 280: “All of the chronicles that survive intact agree that Ismael and Muhammad were of the Black Race…A
careful examination of history reveals that the Prophet Muhammad…was of the Black Race and was black in complexion.”

[soipguibbom]

I am an Arab of Turkish descent so I suppose I am a "white" Arab. I am also a classic Islamic scholar. The Prophet Mohammed was BLACK. All the early Islamic literature described him and his family as Black. Remember, at that time there was no prejudice against being Black, and people who are called "white" today were actually looked down upon and were the slaves. Read the following:

In his work, Islam’s Black Legacy: Some Leading Figures (1993), Mohammed Abu-Bakr
includes among 62 leading Black figures of Islam the prophet Muhammad himself.1 Abu-Bakr rightly
notes:
"According to Muslim tradition, Muhammad descended in a straight line from Ishmael’s second son Kedar
(Arabic: Qaidar), whose name in Hebrew signifies ‘black’…From the sons of Kedar inhabiting the northern
Arabian desert, sprang the noblest tribe in Arabia, the Koreish (Quraysh), the tribe from which Muhammad
descended."2

As we have also discussed above, the Arabian Qedar were a black tribe akin to the equally black
Nabataeans, and these two were in someway related to the Quraysh, the black tribe par excellence of Mecca.
As Robert F. Spencer remarks: “It is said that the Quraysh explained their short stature and dark skin by
the fact that they always carefully adhered to endogamy.”3 Al-Jahiz (d. 869), the important Afro-Iraqi
scholar of ninth century Baghdad, noted in his Fakhr al-sådan ala al-bidan, “The Boast of the Blacks over
the Whites”:

The ten lordly sons of Abd al-Muããalib were deep black (dalham) in color and big/tall (Dukhm). When
Amir b. al-Tufayl saw them circumambulating (the Ka'ba) like dark camels, he said, “With such men as these
is the custody of the Ka'ba preserved.” Abd Allah b. Abbas was very black and tall. Those of Abå Talib’s
family, who are the most noble of men, are more or less black (såd).”4

This report is important for our discussion, not only because Abd al-Muããalib and his ten black
sons were pure Arabs, but also because they are also the family of the Prophet, Abd al-Muããalib
being his paternal grandfather.5 The Syrian scholar and historian al-Dhahabi (d. 1348) too reported
that Abd Allah b. Abbas, Muhammad’s first cousin, and his son, Ali b. Abd Allah, were “very
dark-skinned.”6 Ali b. Abu Talib, first cousin of the Prophet and future fourth caliph, is described by
al-Suyuti and others as “husky, bald…pot-bellied, large-bearded…and jet-black (shadid al-udma).”7
Ali’s son, Abå Jafar Muhammad, according to Ibn Sad (d. 845), described Ali thusly: “He was a
black-skinned man with big, heavy eyes, pot-bellied, bald, and kind of short.”8

This convergence of blackness, nobility and Qurayshi ethnicity is further demonstrated in these lines
attributed to the seventh century CE Qurayshi poet, al-Fadil b. al-Abbas, called al-Akhdar al-LahabÊ
“The Flaming Black”. al-Fadil is the Prophet Muhammad’s first cousin and he said: “I am the blackskinned
one (al-Akhdar). I am well-known. My complexion is black. I am from the noble house of the
Arabs.”9 Ibn Maníår (d. 1311) notes the opinion that al-Akh·ar here means aswad al-jilda, ‘Blackskinned’,
and signifies that al-Fadil is from khaliß al-arab, the pure Arabs, “because the color of most
of the Arabs is dark (al-udma).”10 Similarly Ibn BarrÊ (d. 1193) said also: “He (al-Fadil) means by this
that his genealogy is pure and that he is a pure Arab (arabÊ mahd) because Arabs describe their color as
black (al-aswad).”11 Thus, al-Fadil’s blackness (akhdar) is the visual mark of his pure, Qurayshi
background, being born of a pure Arab mother and father.
The Quraysh consisted of several sub-clans. Abd al-Muããalib and his descendents, including
Muhammad, belonged to the Banå Hashim. Henry Lammens takes notice of “les Hasimites, famille où
dominait le sang nègre” (“the Hashimites, the family where Black blood dominated”).12 Lammens
remarks that they are “généralement qualifies de ??? = couleur foncée” (“generally described as adam =
dark colored”). But the Banå Hashim were not the only sub-clans noted for their blackness. The Banå
Zuhra, the tribe from which the prophet’s mother, Amia bt. Wahb, hailed, was likewise noted for its
blackness. See for example the famous Saad ibn Abi Waqqas (d.ca. 646), cousin of Amia and uncle of
Muhammad. He is described as very dark, tall and flat-nosed.13 Muhammad, it should be noted, was
quite proud of his uncle Saad whose military contributions we shall discuss below. We are told that once
Muhammad was sitting with some of his companions and Saad walked by. The prophet stopped and
taunted: “That’s my uncle. Let any man show me his uncle.”14
This blackness of the Quraysh tribe is not insignificant to the religious history of Islam. The Quraysh
were the custodians of the cult of the Ka'ba in pre-Qur?anic Mecca and at religious ceremonies they
would declare naÈnu ahlu ÏÏahi (“We are the People of AÏÏah”) and throughout Arabia they were known as
ahlu ÏÏah, the People of AÏÏah.15 In other words, the black tribe par excellence was also the AÏÏah-tribe par
excellence and custodians of the cult of the Black God. Nevertheless, or rather as a consequence,
Muhammad’s greatest struggle was with his own kinsmen, this black, AÏÏah-venerating Quraysh tribe. In
the end, however, it would be the black Quraysh that became the rulers of Islam, at least in the short
term. Not only were the Sunni caliphs drawn from them, but the Shiite Imams, descendents of the black
Ali b. Abå Talib, were likewise black QurayshÊ Arabs.16
One would thus expect the Qurayshi prophet Muhammad to be black too, especially since he
reportedly claimed to be a pure Arab for the house of Hashim17: this would make him very black-skinned
like the pure Arabs from that tribe. Muhammad’s pedigree actually demands this as his whole immediate
family tree were pure, black-skinned Qurayshi Arabs. I quote again Al-JaÈií’s important note in his Fakhr
al-sådan ala al-bidan:

The ten lordly sons of Abd al Muããalib were deep black (dalham) in color and big/tall (dukhm). When
Amir b. al-Tufayl saw them circumambulating (the Ka'ba) like dark camels, he said, “With such men as these
is the custody of the Ka'ba preserved.” Abd Allah b. Abbas was very black and tall. Those of Abå Talib’s
family, who are the most noble of men, are more or less black (såd).”18
Abd al Muããalib (d. 578) was the prophet’s grandfather and Abd Allah, one of his ten ‘deep black’
sons, was Muhammad’s father. Another deep black son, al-Abbas, was father to the above mentioned
Abd Allah b. Abbas, described as black, and al-Fa·l b. al-Abbas, whose blackness was legendary.
These were the uncle and first cousins of Muhammad. Abå Talib, another deep black uncle, was father
to Ali b. Abd Allah, another first cousin of the prophet who was described as jet-black. All of these
father-son pairs shared this deep blackness, what about the Abd Allah - Muhammad pair? We would
expect the same, unless Muhammad’s mother made a mitigating contribution. But this is not likely.
Amina, the prophet’s mother, was an Arab from the Qurayshi sub-clan Banå Zuhra, which was a black
clan. Amina’s cousin and Muhammad’s maternal uncle, Saad ibn Abi Waqqas, also from Banå Zuhra,
was very dark, tall and flat-nosed.19

But Muhammad had more than just Qurayshi blackness running through his veins. His great, great
grandfather was Abd Manaf who bore with $tika bt. Murra al-SulaymÊ the prophet’s great
grandfather \ashim. That is to say that the prophet’s great, great grandmother was from the jet-black
Banå Sulaym. \ashim, the great grandfather, bore with Salma bt. Amrå ’l-KhazrajÊ the prophet’s
grandfather, Abd al Muããalib. This means that his paternal great grandmother was from the black
Medinese tribe Banå Khazraj. Abd al Muããalib stayed within the Quraysh, but he bore the prophet’s
father Abd Allah with Faãima bt. Amrå al-MakhzåmÊ, from the exceptionally black Makhzåm
clan.20 Muhammad’s maternal lineage is also mixed with non-QurayshÊ black Arab blood. His mother,
Amina, is the daughter of Wahb b. Abd Manaf b. Zuhra whose mother (Amina’s grandmother) is
said to be a SulaymÊ, another $tika bt. Al-Awqaß.21 The black Sulaym are thus considered the
maternal uncles of the prophet and he is therefore reported to have said: “I am the son of the many
$tikas of Sulaym.”22 This all indicates that Muhammad’s lineage is a mix of QurayshÊ, SulaymÊ, and
KhazrajÊ blackness.

We thus have every reason to expect Muhammad to be black-skinned, and no reason to believe
anything else was possible. We in fact find him described as such in TirmidhÊ’s Shama?il al-
Muhammadiyyah. The following is reported on the authority of the famous Companion of the prophet,
Anas b. Malik:

The Messenger of Allah… was of medium stature, neither tall nor short, of a goodly build. His hair was
neither curly nor completely straight. He had a dark brown (asmar) complexion and when he walked he leant
forward [walking briskly].23

???? asmar is a dark brown as evidenced from other formations from the same root24: samar “darkness,
night”; al-garra al-samra? “the black continent (Africa)”.25 With the pedigree that he had, any other
complexion for Muhammad would be incomprehensible. Yet, the same Anas b. Malik who informed us
of the dark brown complexion of the prophet, also informs us thusly:
While we were sitting with the Prophet in the mosque, a man came riding on a camel. He made his camel
kneel down in the mosque, tied its foreleg and then said: “Who amongst you is Muhammad?” At that time
the Prophet was sitting amongst us (his companions) leaning on his arm. We replied, “This white man
reclining on his arm.”26

There are several other reports that describe Muhammad as ???? abya· white. How can the same
man (Anas b. Malik) describe another (Muhammad) as both of dark brown complexion and as white?
The problem, it turns out, is not in these texts but in our modern, Western inability to appreciate the premodern
Arabic color classification system. We assume that terms such as white, green, blue, and red
meant the same to the early Arabs that they do to us today. But as Moroccan scholar Tariq Berry explains
in his book, The Unknown Arabs, this is simply not the case:
The term white can be very confusing to those reading about the description of people of the past because, in the past,
when Arabs described someone as white, they meant something entirely different from what is meant today. In the past,
when the Arabs described someone as white, they meant either that he had a pure, noble, essence or that he had a nice,
smooth complexion without any blemishes. They meant he had a black complexion with a light-brownish undertone.27
Berry’s point is confirmed by the appropriate Classical Arabic/Islamic sources. Ibn Maníår affirmed that
“When the Arabs say that a person is white, they mean that he has a pure, clean, fautless integrity…They
don’t mean that he has white skin…”28 Similarly, al-Dhahabi informs us that “When the Arabs say a
person is white, they mean he is black with a light-brownish undertone.”29 Particularly important was the
observation of the 9th century CE Arabic scholar Thalab, who tells us that : “The Arabs don’t say that a
man is white because of a white complexion. White to the Arabs means that a person is pure, without any
faults. If they meant his complexion was white, they said ‘red’ (aÈmar).”30 Indeed, as David Goldenberg
notes, ‘white ???? ’ in pre-modern Arabic was about “luminosity, not chromaticity.”31 That is to say, ????
connoted brilliance, not paleness of skin. The latter was described as ‘red’ ? ??? aÈmar, which is how non-
Arab whites such as Persians and Byzantines were described.32 In other words, what we call white today
the early Arabs called red, and what they called white often was what we would today call black!
It is certain that Muhammad could not have been what we consider white today; he could not have
been fair or pale-skinned at all, for a pale-skinned Arab was such an oddity that the prophet could not
have claimed be a pure QurayshÊ Arab. The seventh century Arab from the tribe of Nakha?i, Shurayk al-
Qa·i, could claim that, because it was such a rare occurrence “a fair-skinned Arab is something
inconceivable and unthinkable.”33 So too did al-Dhahabi report that: “Red, in the language of the people
from the Hijaz, means fair-complexioned and this color is rare amongst the Arabs.”34 On the other hand,
the Arabs prided themselves on being black, is conscious contrast to the pale-skinned non-Arabs. Al-JaÈií
could still claim in the 9th century:
????? ???? ????? ?????
al-arab tafkhar bi-sawad al-lawn
“The Arabs pride themselves in (their) black color”35

These noble Black Arabs even detested pale skin. Al-Mubarrad (d. 898), the leading figure in the Basran
grammatical tradition, is quoted as saying: “The Arabs used to take pride in their darkness and blackness
and they had a distaste for a light complexion and they used to say that a light complexion was the
complexion of the non-Arabs”. Part of the reason for this distaste is that the slaves at the time were largely
from pale-skinned peoples, such that aÈmar “red” came to mean “slave” back then, just as abid
“servant/slave” means black today in the now white Muslim world. As Dana Marniche observes:
Anyone familiar with the Arabic writings of the Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian historians up until the 14th century
knows that this is also their description of the early ‘pure’ Arab clans of the Arabian peninsula… [i.e. “blacker
than the blackest ink – no shred of white on them except their teeth.”]…The irony of history is that early
Arabic-speaking historians and linguists made a distinction between the Arabs in Arabia and the fair-skinned
peoples to the north; and contrary to what may be fact in our day, in the days of early Islam, those called
‘Arabs’ looked down condescendingly on fair-skinned populations and commonly used the phrase ‘fairskinned
as a slave’ when describing individuals in tribes in the peninsula that were pale in complexion…Of
course, today due mainly to slavery and conversion of peoples to the ‘Arab’ nationality, the opposite is
thought to be true by many in the West.

A red or pale-skinned Muhammad would thus have been a profound oddity in 7th century Arabia and
would have had little chance of success amongst the proud, black Meccans and Medinese. The Meccan
objectors to his message accused of some of everything, but never of being a non-Arab! There is absolutely no
reason to believe he was pale-skinned other than much later representations that coincide with a major
demographic change it the Muslim world, a change that brought with it a strong anti-black ideology.36
We thus have every reason to accept the truth of Anas b. Malik’s description of the prophet as dark
brown (asmar) and to conclude that, as his black cousins Ali and al-Fa·l resembled their black fathers (his
black uncles), he resembled his black father, especially since his mother’s side was black as well.37


FOOTNOTES
1 Abu-Bakr, Islam’s Black Legacy, Chapter 1. See also Rogers, Sex and Race, I: 95 who states that “Mohamet, himself, was to all accounts a
Negro.” Ben-Jochannon too accepted that Muhammad was “in the family of the Black Race”. African Origins, 237.
2 Abu-Bakr, Islam’s Black Legacy, 1.
3 Robert F. Spencer, “The Arabian Matriarchate: An Old Controversy,” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 8 (Winter, 1952) 488.
4 Al-JaÈií, Fakhr al-sådan ala al-bidan, in Risa"il Al-JaÈií, 4 vols. (1964/1384) I:209.
5 See below.
6 al-Dhahabi, Siyar, V:253
7 Al-Suyåãi, Tarikh al-khulafa (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1975) 186. On shadid al-udma as ‘jet-black’ see Berry, Unknown, 54.
8 Ibn Sad, al-Tabaqat al-kubra (Beirut: Dar Sadir) 8:25. On Ali as short and dark brown see Henry Stubbe, An Account of the Rise and
Progress of Muhammadanism (1911) XX; I.M.N. al-Jubouri, History of Islamic Philosophy – With View of Greek Philosophy and
Early History of Islam (2004), 155; Philip K Hitti, History of the Arabs, 10th edition (London: Macmillan Education Ltd, 1970) 183.
9 Ibn Maníår, Lisan al-arab, s.v. ???? IV:245f.
10 Ibn Maníår, Lisan al-arab, s.v. ???? IV:245; E.W. Lane, Arabic-English, I: 756 s.v. . ???
11 Ibn Maníår, Lisan al-arab, s.v. ???? IV:245.
12 Études sur le siècle des Omayyades (Beirut: Imprimerie Calholique, 1930) 44.
13 al-Dhahabi, Siyar, 1:97.
14 Abd al-RaÈman Rafat al-Basha, ‘uwar min Èayat al-‘aÈabah (Beirut: Mu?assasat al-Risalah, 1974-75) 287.
15 Uri Rubin, “The Ilaf of Quraysh: A Study of såra CVI,” Arabica 31 (1984): 165-188; Margoliouth, Mohammed, 19.
16 Berry, Unknown Arabs, 62-65.
17 He is supposed to have described himself as “Arab of the Arabs, of the purest blood of your land, of the family of the Hashim and of the tribe of
Quraysh.”Quoted in Chandler, “Ebony and Bronze,” 285.
18 Al-JaÈií, Fakhr al-sådan ala al-bidan, in Risa"il Al-JaÈií, 4 vols. (1964/1384) I:209.
19 al-Dhahabi, Siyar, 1:97.
20 On the significance of these matrilateral listings in Muhammad’s genealogy see Daniel Martin Varisco, “Metaphors and Sacred History: The
Genealogy of Muhammad and the Arab ‘Tribe’,” Anthropological Quarterly 68 (1995): 139-156, esp. 148-150.
21 Ibn Athir, al-Nihaya fÊ gharÊb al-ÈadÊth (Cairo, 1385/1965) III:180 s.v. -t-k; Lecker, Banå sulaym, 114.
22 Muhammad b. Yåsuf al-‘aliÈÊ al-ShamÊ, Subul al-huda wa-‘l-rashad fÊ sÊrat khayr al-bad (Cairo, 1392/1972) I:384-85; Lecker,
Banå sulaym, 114-115.
23 Al-TirmidhÊ, Shama?il al-Muhammadiyyah, 2.
24 J M. Cowan (ed.), Hans Wehr Arabic-English Dictionary 4th edition (Ithica: Spoken Language Services, Inc., 1994) 500 s.v. .???
25 Berry, Unknown Arabs, 49 notes: “When the Arabs of the past said that a person was brown, they meant that he was dark-skinned; close to
black, which is actually a dark shade of brown.”
26 Sahih al-Bukhari vol. 1 no. 63:
27 Berry, Unknown Arabs, 49.
28 Ibn Maníår, Lisan al-Arab 7:124.
29 Al-Dhahabi, Siyar alam al-nubala (Beirut: Risala Establishment, 1992) 2:168.
30 Ibn Maníår, Lisan al-Arab. 4:210.
31 Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 93.
32 Goldziher, Muslim Studies, 1:268.
33 Ibn Abd Rabbih, al-Iqd al-farid (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiya, 1983) 8:140.
34 Al-Dhahabi, Siyar, 2:168.
35 Al-JaÈií, Fakhr al-sådan ala al-bidan, 207. See also Goldziher, Muslim Studies, 1:268 who notes that in contrast to the Persians who are
described as red or light-skinned (aÈmar) the Arabs call themselves black.
36 See below.
37 Chandler, “Ebony and Bronze,” 280: “All of the chronicles that survive intact agree that Ismael and Muhammad were of the Black Race…A
careful examination of history reveals that the Prophet Muhammad…was of the Black Race and was black in complexion.”

Orientalist hogwash.

[igs00r]

Asslamu-alaikum,

Please refer to hadiths in Shama`il Tirmidhi.

http://www.inter-islam.org/hadeeth/stmenu.htm

Wassalam

The translation of the hadiths in Shamail Tirmidhi is not correct.

[igs00r]

1)Was Muhammed (saw) black?

What do you mean by "black". When the Arabs of the past said "black", they meant a very dark complexion - a complexion much darker than the complexion of most people called "black" today. So what do you mean by "black"?

[igs00r]

2)Were all the prophets of Islam mainly Africans?

In history, there is no such thing as an "African".

[igs00r]

I would evade the question. A person like that is probably looking for a black guy to follow. If you mention that Rasoolullah was white (with red mixed in) he might not be attracted to Islam.

Why evade the question??? Instead you should say how he (SAWS) was described without concealing anything and you should explain the meanings of the words used to describe him (SAWS). Explain that he was described as "white" and describe what white meant to the Arabs of the past. Also, explain that he (SAWS) was described as asmar and explain what asmar means. Then you should explain to him what the Arabs of the past looked like in general. If you think dark skin would attract him to Islam, by explaining these things to him, you will attract him to Islam inshaAllah. http://www.savethetruearabs.com/

[igs00r]

Show him that we don't hate black people by talking about our love for Bilal and an-Najashee.

Why talk about Bilal and An-Najaashi specifically? Do you think that they looked any different from the other Arabs?

Description of Bilal:

‏ قال ‏مكحول:‏ ‏‏"‏حدثني من‏ ‏رأى‏ ‏بلالا رجلا آدم شديد الأدمة

Makhoul said:

"Those who saw Bilal informed me that he was adam shadeed al-udma (very, very dark-skinned)."



Description of Ali ibn Abi Talib - The first cousin of the Prophet (SAWS):


قال‏ ‏جلال‏ ‏الدين‏ ‏السيوطي في‏ ‏كتابه‏ ‏تاريخ‏ ‏الخلفاء‏:‏ ‏‏"‏‏و‏ ‏كان‏‏ ‏علي‏ (بن‏ ‏ابي‏ ‏طالب)‏ شيخا‏،‏ ‏سمينا،‏ ‏‏أ‏صلع،‏‏ ‏كثير‏ ‏الشعر،‏ ‏ربعة‏ ‏الى‏ ‏القصر،‏ ‏عظيم‏ ‏البطن،‏ ‏عظيم‏ ‏اللحية‏ ‏جدا،‏ ‏قد‏ ‏ملأت‏ ‏ما‏ ‏بين‏ ‏منكبيه،‏ ‏بيضاء‏ ‏كأنها‏ ‏قطن،‏ ‏آدم‏ ‏شديد‏ ‏الأدمة‏"‏.‏
Jalal Addin As-Suyuti says in his book Taarikh Al-Khulafaa:

"He (Ali ibn Abi Talib (RAA)) was an elderly, heavy-set, bald, hairy man of average height leaning toward shortness; with a pot belly, a very large beard which was white as if it was cotton and which filled all between his shoulders. And he was adam shadeed al-udma (very, very dark-skinned)."

[JeorgeNoxeref]

I am an Arab of Turkish descent so I suppose I am a "white" Arab. I am also a classic Islamic scholar. The Prophet Mohammed was BLACK. All the early Islamic literature described him and his family as Black. Remember, at that time there was no prejudice against being Black, and people who are called "white" today were actually looked down upon and were the slaves. Read the following:

In his work, Islam’s Black Legacy: Some Leading Figures (1993), Mohammed Abu-Bakr
includes among 62 leading Black figures of Islam the prophet Muhammad himself.1 Abu-Bakr rightly
notes:
"According to Muslim tradition, Muhammad descended in a straight line from Ishmael’s second son Kedar
(Arabic: Qaidar), whose name in Hebrew signifies ‘black’…From the sons of Kedar inhabiting the northern
Arabian desert, sprang the noblest tribe in Arabia, the Koreish (Quraysh), the tribe from which Muhammad
descended."2

As we have also discussed above, the Arabian Qedar were a black tribe akin to the equally black
Nabataeans, and these two were in someway related to the Quraysh, the black tribe par excellence of Mecca.
As Robert F. Spencer remarks: “It is said that the Quraysh explained their short stature and dark skin by
the fact that they always carefully adhered to endogamy.”3 Al-Jahiz (d. 869), the important Afro-Iraqi
scholar of ninth century Baghdad, noted in his Fakhr al-sådan ala al-bidan, “The Boast of the Blacks over
the Whites”:

The ten lordly sons of Abd al-Muããalib were deep black (dalham) in color and big/tall (Dukhm). When
Amir b. al-Tufayl saw them circumambulating (the Ka'ba) like dark camels, he said, “With such men as these
is the custody of the Ka'ba preserved.” Abd Allah b. Abbas was very black and tall. Those of Abå Talib’s
family, who are the most noble of men, are more or less black (såd).”4

This report is important for our discussion, not only because Abd al-Muããalib and his ten black
sons were pure Arabs, but also because they are also the family of the Prophet, Abd al-Muããalib
being his paternal grandfather.5 The Syrian scholar and historian al-Dhahabi (d. 1348) too reported
that Abd Allah b. Abbas, Muhammad’s first cousin, and his son, Ali b. Abd Allah, were “very
dark-skinned.”6 Ali b. Abu Talib, first cousin of the Prophet and future fourth caliph, is described by
al-Suyuti and others as “husky, bald…pot-bellied, large-bearded…and jet-black (shadid al-udma).”7
Ali’s son, Abå Jafar Muhammad, according to Ibn Sad (d. 845), described Ali thusly: “He was a
black-skinned man with big, heavy eyes, pot-bellied, bald, and kind of short.”8

This convergence of blackness, nobility and Qurayshi ethnicity is further demonstrated in these lines
attributed to the seventh century CE Qurayshi poet, al-Fadil b. al-Abbas, called al-Akhdar al-LahabÊ
“The Flaming Black”. al-Fadil is the Prophet Muhammad’s first cousin and he said: “I am the blackskinned
one (al-Akhdar). I am well-known. My complexion is black. I am from the noble house of the
Arabs.”9 Ibn Maníår (d. 1311) notes the opinion that al-Akh·ar here means aswad al-jilda, ‘Blackskinned’,
and signifies that al-Fadil is from khaliß al-arab, the pure Arabs, “because the color of most
of the Arabs is dark (al-udma).”10 Similarly Ibn BarrÊ (d. 1193) said also: “He (al-Fadil) means by this
that his genealogy is pure and that he is a pure Arab (arabÊ mahd) because Arabs describe their color as
black (al-aswad).”11 Thus, al-Fadil’s blackness (akhdar) is the visual mark of his pure, Qurayshi
background, being born of a pure Arab mother and father.
The Quraysh consisted of several sub-clans. Abd al-Muããalib and his descendents, including
Muhammad, belonged to the Banå Hashim. Henry Lammens takes notice of “les Hasimites, famille où
dominait le sang nègre” (“the Hashimites, the family where Black blood dominated”).12 Lammens
remarks that they are “généralement qualifies de ??? = couleur foncée” (“generally described as adam =
dark colored”). But the Banå Hashim were not the only sub-clans noted for their blackness. The Banå
Zuhra, the tribe from which the prophet’s mother, Amia bt. Wahb, hailed, was likewise noted for its
blackness. See for example the famous Saad ibn Abi Waqqas (d.ca. 646), cousin of Amia and uncle of
Muhammad. He is described as very dark, tall and flat-nosed.13 Muhammad, it should be noted, was
quite proud of his uncle Saad whose military contributions we shall discuss below. We are told that once
Muhammad was sitting with some of his companions and Saad walked by. The prophet stopped and
taunted: “That’s my uncle. Let any man show me his uncle.”14
This blackness of the Quraysh tribe is not insignificant to the religious history of Islam. The Quraysh
were the custodians of the cult of the Ka'ba in pre-Qur?anic Mecca and at religious ceremonies they
would declare naÈnu ahlu ÏÏahi (“We are the People of AÏÏah”) and throughout Arabia they were known as
ahlu ÏÏah, the People of AÏÏah.15 In other words, the black tribe par excellence was also the AÏÏah-tribe par
excellence and custodians of the cult of the Black God. Nevertheless, or rather as a consequence,
Muhammad’s greatest struggle was with his own kinsmen, this black, AÏÏah-venerating Quraysh tribe. In
the end, however, it would be the black Quraysh that became the rulers of Islam, at least in the short
term. Not only were the Sunni caliphs drawn from them, but the Shiite Imams, descendents of the black
Ali b. Abå Talib, were likewise black QurayshÊ Arabs.16
One would thus expect the Qurayshi prophet Muhammad to be black too, especially since he
reportedly claimed to be a pure Arab for the house of Hashim17: this would make him very black-skinned
like the pure Arabs from that tribe. Muhammad’s pedigree actually demands this as his whole immediate
family tree were pure, black-skinned Qurayshi Arabs. I quote again Al-JaÈií’s important note in his Fakhr
al-sådan ala al-bidan:

The ten lordly sons of Abd al Muããalib were deep black (dalham) in color and big/tall (dukhm). When
Amir b. al-Tufayl saw them circumambulating (the Ka'ba) like dark camels, he said, “With such men as these
is the custody of the Ka'ba preserved.” Abd Allah b. Abbas was very black and tall. Those of Abå Talib’s
family, who are the most noble of men, are more or less black (såd).”18
Abd al Muããalib (d. 578) was the prophet’s grandfather and Abd Allah, one of his ten ‘deep black’
sons, was Muhammad’s father. Another deep black son, al-Abbas, was father to the above mentioned
Abd Allah b. Abbas, described as black, and al-Fa·l b. al-Abbas, whose blackness was legendary.
These were the uncle and first cousins of Muhammad. Abå Talib, another deep black uncle, was father
to Ali b. Abd Allah, another first cousin of the prophet who was described as jet-black. All of these
father-son pairs shared this deep blackness, what about the Abd Allah - Muhammad pair? We would
expect the same, unless Muhammad’s mother made a mitigating contribution. But this is not likely.
Amina, the prophet’s mother, was an Arab from the Qurayshi sub-clan Banå Zuhra, which was a black
clan. Amina’s cousin and Muhammad’s maternal uncle, Saad ibn Abi Waqqas, also from Banå Zuhra,
was very dark, tall and flat-nosed.19

But Muhammad had more than just Qurayshi blackness running through his veins. His great, great
grandfather was Abd Manaf who bore with $tika bt. Murra al-SulaymÊ the prophet’s great
grandfather \ashim. That is to say that the prophet’s great, great grandmother was from the jet-black
Banå Sulaym. \ashim, the great grandfather, bore with Salma bt. Amrå ’l-KhazrajÊ the prophet’s
grandfather, Abd al Muããalib. This means that his paternal great grandmother was from the black
Medinese tribe Banå Khazraj. Abd al Muããalib stayed within the Quraysh, but he bore the prophet’s
father Abd Allah with Faãima bt. Amrå al-MakhzåmÊ, from the exceptionally black Makhzåm
clan.20 Muhammad’s maternal lineage is also mixed with non-QurayshÊ black Arab blood. His mother,
Amina, is the daughter of Wahb b. Abd Manaf b. Zuhra whose mother (Amina’s grandmother) is
said to be a SulaymÊ, another $tika bt. Al-Awqaß.21 The black Sulaym are thus considered the
maternal uncles of the prophet and he is therefore reported to have said: “I am the son of the many
$tikas of Sulaym.”22 This all indicates that Muhammad’s lineage is a mix of QurayshÊ, SulaymÊ, and
KhazrajÊ blackness.

We thus have every reason to expect Muhammad to be black-skinned, and no reason to believe
anything else was possible. We in fact find him described as such in TirmidhÊ’s Shama?il al-
Muhammadiyyah. The following is reported on the authority of the famous Companion of the prophet,
Anas b. Malik:

The Messenger of Allah… was of medium stature, neither tall nor short, of a goodly build. His hair was
neither curly nor completely straight. He had a dark brown (asmar) complexion and when he walked he leant
forward [walking briskly].23

???? asmar is a dark brown as evidenced from other formations from the same root24: samar “darkness,
night”; al-garra al-samra? “the black continent (Africa)”.25 With the pedigree that he had, any other
complexion for Muhammad would be incomprehensible. Yet, the same Anas b. Malik who informed us
of the dark brown complexion of the prophet, also informs us thusly:
While we were sitting with the Prophet in the mosque, a man came riding on a camel. He made his camel
kneel down in the mosque, tied its foreleg and then said: “Who amongst you is Muhammad?” At that time
the Prophet was sitting amongst us (his companions) leaning on his arm. We replied, “This white man
reclining on his arm.”26

There are several other reports that describe Muhammad as ???? abya· white. How can the same
man (Anas b. Malik) describe another (Muhammad) as both of dark brown complexion and as white?
The problem, it turns out, is not in these texts but in our modern, Western inability to appreciate the premodern
Arabic color classification system. We assume that terms such as white, green, blue, and red
meant the same to the early Arabs that they do to us today. But as Moroccan scholar Tariq Berry explains
in his book, The Unknown Arabs, this is simply not the case:
The term white can be very confusing to those reading about the description of people of the past because, in the past,
when Arabs described someone as white, they meant something entirely different from what is meant today. In the past,
when the Arabs described someone as white, they meant either that he had a pure, noble, essence or that he had a nice,
smooth complexion without any blemishes. They meant he had a black complexion with a light-brownish undertone.27
Berry’s point is confirmed by the appropriate Classical Arabic/Islamic sources. Ibn Maníår affirmed that
“When the Arabs say that a person is white, they mean that he has a pure, clean, fautless integrity…They
don’t mean that he has white skin…”28 Similarly, al-Dhahabi informs us that “When the Arabs say a
person is white, they mean he is black with a light-brownish undertone.”29 Particularly important was the
observation of the 9th century CE Arabic scholar Thalab, who tells us that : “The Arabs don’t say that a
man is white because of a white complexion. White to the Arabs means that a person is pure, without any
faults. If they meant his complexion was white, they said ‘red’ (aÈmar).”30 Indeed, as David Goldenberg
notes, ‘white ???? ’ in pre-modern Arabic was about “luminosity, not chromaticity.”31 That is to say, ????
connoted brilliance, not paleness of skin. The latter was described as ‘red’ ? ??? aÈmar, which is how non-
Arab whites such as Persians and Byzantines were described.32 In other words, what we call white today
the early Arabs called red, and what they called white often was what we would today call black!
It is certain that Muhammad could not have been what we consider white today; he could not have
been fair or pale-skinned at all, for a pale-skinned Arab was such an oddity that the prophet could not
have claimed be a pure QurayshÊ Arab. The seventh century Arab from the tribe of Nakha?i, Shurayk al-
Qa·i, could claim that, because it was such a rare occurrence “a fair-skinned Arab is something
inconceivable and unthinkable.”33 So too did al-Dhahabi report that: “Red, in the language of the people
from the Hijaz, means fair-complexioned and this color is rare amongst the Arabs.”34 On the other hand,
the Arabs prided themselves on being black, is conscious contrast to the pale-skinned non-Arabs. Al-JaÈií
could still claim in the 9th century:
????? ???? ????? ?????
al-arab tafkhar bi-sawad al-lawn
“The Arabs pride themselves in (their) black color”35

These noble Black Arabs even detested pale skin. Al-Mubarrad (d. 898), the leading figure in the Basran
grammatical tradition, is quoted as saying: “The Arabs used to take pride in their darkness and blackness
and they had a distaste for a light complexion and they used to say that a light complexion was the
complexion of the non-Arabs”. Part of the reason for this distaste is that the slaves at the time were largely
from pale-skinned peoples, such that aÈmar “red” came to mean “slave” back then, just as abid
“servant/slave” means black today in the now white Muslim world. As Dana Marniche observes:
Anyone familiar with the Arabic writings of the Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian historians up until the 14th century
knows that this is also their description of the early ‘pure’ Arab clans of the Arabian peninsula… [i.e. “blacker
than the blackest ink – no shred of white on them except their teeth.”]…The irony of history is that early
Arabic-speaking historians and linguists made a distinction between the Arabs in Arabia and the fair-skinned
peoples to the north; and contrary to what may be fact in our day, in the days of early Islam, those called
‘Arabs’ looked down condescendingly on fair-skinned populations and commonly used the phrase ‘fairskinned
as a slave’ when describing individuals in tribes in the peninsula that were pale in complexion…Of
course, today due mainly to slavery and conversion of peoples to the ‘Arab’ nationality, the opposite is
thought to be true by many in the West.

A red or pale-skinned Muhammad would thus have been a profound oddity in 7th century Arabia and
would have had little chance of success amongst the proud, black Meccans and Medinese. The Meccan
objectors to his message accused of some of everything, but never of being a non-Arab! There is absolutely no
reason to believe he was pale-skinned other than much later representations that coincide with a major
demographic change it the Muslim world, a change that brought with it a strong anti-black ideology.36
We thus have every reason to accept the truth of Anas b. Malik’s description of the prophet as dark
brown (asmar) and to conclude that, as his black cousins Ali and al-Fa·l resembled their black fathers (his
black uncles), he resembled his black father, especially since his mother’s side was black as well.37


FOOTNOTES
1 Abu-Bakr, Islam’s Black Legacy, Chapter 1. See also Rogers, Sex and Race, I: 95 who states that “Mohamet, himself, was to all accounts a
Negro.” Ben-Jochannon too accepted that Muhammad was “in the family of the Black Race”. African Origins, 237.
2 Abu-Bakr, Islam’s Black Legacy, 1.
3 Robert F. Spencer, “The Arabian Matriarchate: An Old Controversy,” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 8 (Winter, 1952) 488.
4 Al-JaÈií, Fakhr al-sådan ala al-bidan, in Risa"il Al-JaÈií, 4 vols. (1964/1384) I:209.
5 See below.
6 al-Dhahabi, Siyar, V:253
7 Al-Suyåãi, Tarikh al-khulafa (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1975) 186. On shadid al-udma as ‘jet-black’ see Berry, Unknown, 54.
8 Ibn Sad, al-Tabaqat al-kubra (Beirut: Dar Sadir) 8:25. On Ali as short and dark brown see Henry Stubbe, An Account of the Rise and
Progress of Muhammadanism (1911) XX; I.M.N. al-Jubouri, History of Islamic Philosophy – With View of Greek Philosophy and
Early History of Islam (2004), 155; Philip K Hitti, History of the Arabs, 10th edition (London: Macmillan Education Ltd, 1970) 183.
9 Ibn Maníår, Lisan al-arab, s.v. ???? IV:245f.
10 Ibn Maníår, Lisan al-arab, s.v. ???? IV:245; E.W. Lane, Arabic-English, I: 756 s.v. . ???
11 Ibn Maníår, Lisan al-arab, s.v. ???? IV:245.
12 Études sur le siècle des Omayyades (Beirut: Imprimerie Calholique, 1930) 44.
13 al-Dhahabi, Siyar, 1:97.
14 Abd al-RaÈman Rafat al-Basha, ‘uwar min Èayat al-‘aÈabah (Beirut: Mu?assasat al-Risalah, 1974-75) 287.
15 Uri Rubin, “The Ilaf of Quraysh: A Study of såra CVI,” Arabica 31 (1984): 165-188; Margoliouth, Mohammed, 19.
16 Berry, Unknown Arabs, 62-65.
17 He is supposed to have described himself as “Arab of the Arabs, of the purest blood of your land, of the family of the Hashim and of the tribe of
Quraysh.”Quoted in Chandler, “Ebony and Bronze,” 285.
18 Al-JaÈií, Fakhr al-sådan ala al-bidan, in Risa"il Al-JaÈií, 4 vols. (1964/1384) I:209.
19 al-Dhahabi, Siyar, 1:97.
20 On the significance of these matrilateral listings in Muhammad’s genealogy see Daniel Martin Varisco, “Metaphors and Sacred History: The
Genealogy of Muhammad and the Arab ‘Tribe’,” Anthropological Quarterly 68 (1995): 139-156, esp. 148-150.
21 Ibn Athir, al-Nihaya fÊ gharÊb al-ÈadÊth (Cairo, 1385/1965) III:180 s.v. -t-k; Lecker, Banå sulaym, 114.
22 Muhammad b. Yåsuf al-‘aliÈÊ al-ShamÊ, Subul al-huda wa-‘l-rashad fÊ sÊrat khayr al-bad (Cairo, 1392/1972) I:384-85; Lecker,
Banå sulaym, 114-115.
23 Al-TirmidhÊ, Shama?il al-Muhammadiyyah, 2.
24 J M. Cowan (ed.), Hans Wehr Arabic-English Dictionary 4th edition (Ithica: Spoken Language Services, Inc., 1994) 500 s.v. .???
25 Berry, Unknown Arabs, 49 notes: “When the Arabs of the past said that a person was brown, they meant that he was dark-skinned; close to
black, which is actually a dark shade of brown.”
26 Sahih al-Bukhari vol. 1 no. 63:
27 Berry, Unknown Arabs, 49.
28 Ibn Maníår, Lisan al-Arab 7:124.
29 Al-Dhahabi, Siyar alam al-nubala (Beirut: Risala Establishment, 1992) 2:168.
30 Ibn Maníår, Lisan al-Arab. 4:210.
31 Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 93.
32 Goldziher, Muslim Studies, 1:268.
33 Ibn Abd Rabbih, al-Iqd al-farid (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiya, 1983) 8:140.
34 Al-Dhahabi, Siyar, 2:168.
35 Al-JaÈií, Fakhr al-sådan ala al-bidan, 207. See also Goldziher, Muslim Studies, 1:268 who notes that in contrast to the Persians who are
described as red or light-skinned (aÈmar) the Arabs call themselves black.
36 See below.
37 Chandler, “Ebony and Bronze,” 280: “All of the chronicles that survive intact agree that Ismael and Muhammad were of the Black Race…A
careful examination of history reveals that the Prophet Muhammad…was of the Black Race and was black in complexion.”

You sound suspiciously like a black male with an agenda and an axe to grind lol

[TOD4wDTQ]

I'm brown skinned. My mother is dark skinned and my father white skinned. I do not care if the prophet (saw) was light, Dark, Brown or whatever. All what matters to me is his actions and words. Why do people still get hung up on the skin colour of people? It really doesn't matter.

[igs00r]

I'm brown skinned. My mother is dark skinned and my father white skinned. I do not care if the prophet (saw) was light, Dark, Brown or whatever. All what matters to me is his actions and words. Why do people still get hung up on the skin colour of people? It really doesn't matter.

When you say that you don't care what color the Prophet (SAWS) is, do you mean that you don't want to know or do you mean that knowing will not affect your belief in any way. Personally, I think you should want to know what your Prophet (SAWS) looked like. It's only natural to want to know as much as possible about the one you love. I truly believe that there are some Muslims whose belief might be adversely affected by their discovering that the Prophet (SAWS) was actually darker than they imagined. I think that the true description of the Prophet (SAWS) and of the Arabs of the past in general needs to be revealed in order to sift out such Muslims.

[igs00r]

I'm brown skinned. My mother is dark skinned and my father white skinned. I do not care if the prophet (saw) was light, Dark, Brown or whatever. All what matters to me is his actions and words. Why do people still get hung up on the skin colour of people? It really doesn't matter.

When you say that you don't care what color the Prophet (SAWS) is, do you mean that you don't want to know or do you mean that knowing will not affect your belief in any way. Personally, I think you should want to know what your Prophet (SAWS) looked like. It's only natural to want to know as much as possible about the one you love. I truly believe that there are some Muslims whose belief might be adversely affected by their discovering that the Prophet (SAWS) was actually darker than they imagined. I think that the true description of the Prophet (SAWS) and of the Arabs of the past in general needs to be revealed in order to sift out such Muslims. Islam is in no need of such people.

[TOD4wDTQ]

When you say that you don't care what color the Prophet (SAWS) is, do you mean that you don't want to know or do you mean that knowing will not affect your belief in any way. Personally, I think you should want to know what your Prophet (SAWS) looked like. It's only natural to want to know as much as possible about the one you love. I truly believe that there are some Muslims whose belief might be adversely affected by their discovering that the Prophet (SAWS) was actually darker than they imagined. I think that the true description of the Prophet (SAWS) and of the Arabs of the past in general needs to be revealed in order to sift out such Muslims.

I mean it doesn't effect my belief.