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Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Race and Tribe: Difference between revisions
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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}} | 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}} | ||
== Race and tribe in early Islam == | |||
The following quotes a regional governor writing to final Umayyad caliph, Marwan II (r. 744-750) | |||
{{Quote|Recorded by al-Jahshiyari (d. 942), a prominent Abbasid bureaucrat and scholar, in his ''Kitab al-wuzara wa'l-kuttab'' (or ''Book of Viziers and Scribes''). Translated and quoted in: {{citation|editor=Bernard Lewis|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1987|title=Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople|page=197|ISBN=9780195050875|url=https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/islam-9780195050875?cc=us&lang=en&}}|A governor presented Marwan with a black slave. He said to 'Abd al-Hamid, "Write to him and disparage what he has done" 'Abd al-Hamid wrote to the governor, "Had you found a worse color than black and a smaller number than one, you would have sent that." This is adapted from the saying of a Bedouin who was asked what children he had, and replied, "Little and bad." When asked what he meant, he replied, "Not less than one, not worse than a daughter."}} | |||
==Historians on race and tribe in Islam== | ==Historians on race and tribe in Islam== | ||
Dr. Michael Penn is Teresa Hihn Moore Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University and is a specialist in early Islamic history. | Dr. Michael Penn is Teresa Hihn Moore Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University and is a specialist in early Islamic history. | ||
{{Quote|{{citation|title=Envisioning Islam - Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World|year=2015|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|page=59|ISBN=978-0-8122-4722-0|author=Michael Penn}}|Contrary to many present-day stereotypes of early Islam, throughout much of the seventh and early eighth centuries, admission into the ''umma'' was reserved exclusively for Arabs. Religious conversion was predicated on ethnic conversion. For a non-Arab to become Muslim, that individual first had to gain membership in an Arab tribe by becoming the ''mawlā'' (client) of an Arab sponsor. From a seventh-century Islamic perspective, ethnicity and religion were not independent variables. All Muslims were Arabs, and ideally all Arabs were Muslims.}} | {{Quote|{{citation|title=Envisioning Islam - Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World|year=2015|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|page=59|ISBN=978-0-8122-4722-0|author=Michael Penn}}|Contrary to many present-day stereotypes of early Islam, throughout much of the seventh and early eighth centuries, admission into the ''umma'' was reserved exclusively for Arabs. Religious conversion was predicated on ethnic conversion. For a non-Arab to become Muslim, that individual first had to gain membership in an Arab tribe by becoming the ''mawlā'' (client) of an Arab sponsor. From a seventh-century Islamic perspective, ethnicity and religion were not independent variables. All Muslims were Arabs, and ideally all Arabs were Muslims.}} | ||