Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry (12 page)

These traditions, and those opposed to them, clearly reflect the great
struggles in the early Islamic Empire between the pure Arab conquistador
aristocracy, claiming both ethnic and social superiority, and the converts
among the conquered, who could claim neither ethnic nor family advantage
and perhaps for that reason insisted on the primacy of religious merit.

Here I may draw attention to a rhetorical device very common in classical
Arabic usage-an argument by the absurd. It is, however, very different from
that device which we call the reductio ad absurdum. The purpose of the
reductio ad absurdum is to demonstrate the falsity of an argument by stating it
in its most extreme and therefore absurd form. The Arabic rhetorical device
to which I refer has the opposite purpose-not to disprove but to emphasize
and reaffirm; it is thus not a reductio ad absurdum, but rather a trajectio ad
absurdum (if I may coin a rhetorical term). A principle is asserted and an
extreme, even an absurd, example is given-but the purpose is to show that
the principle still applies even in this extreme and absurd formulation.

One cannot but be struck by the number of times the black-as also the
Jew and the woman-is used to point this type of argument in both classical
and modern times. Thus, in asserting the duty of obedience, of submission to legitimate authority, however unlikely the form in which it appears, Muslim
jurists cite a dictum attributed to the Prophet: "Obey whoever is put in
authority over you, even if he be a crop-nosed Ethiopian slave."30 This combination of qualities is clearly intended to indicate the ultimate improbability at
once in physical, social, and racial terms.

A different point is made in the same way in a late anecdote, the purpose
of which is to emphasize the importance of humane treatment for slaves. An
Arab had a black slave woman, who tended his sheep. Angered when she
allowed a wolf to take one of them, he slapped her face. She complained; and
the Prophet, hearing of the matter, ruled that the compensation due for the
slap was her freedom. The owner objected that she was "black and barbarous" and understood nothing of the faith. "The Prophet asked her: `Where is
God?' She replied: 'In heaven.' The Prophet said: 'She is a believer; free
her.' X31

Some traditions use the same rhetorical device in relation to the choice of
a wife:

Do not marry women for their beauty, which may destroy them, or for their
money, which may corrupt them, but for religion. A slit-nosed black slavewoman, if pious, is preferable. 32

Piety must overcome inclination, though it cannot redirect it.

This theme also occurs in stories about Abu Dharr, an early Muslim hero
who is often cited as a model of piety and humility. As examples of his
humility it is mentioned that he married a black woman, "for he wanted a wife
who would lower him and not exalt him," and that he was willing to pray
behind an Ethiopian.33 The point is most forcibly made by the famous Ibn
Hazm (994-1064), who observes that

God has decreed that the most devout is the noblest 34 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.35

The sentiment is impeccably pious and egalitarian-yet somehow the formulation does not entirely carry conviction. Significantly, Ibn Hazm makes
this remark in the introduction to a treatise on Arab genealogy, in which he
tries to demonstrate the importance and dignity of this science. In another
somewhat equivocal tradition, an Ethiopian says to the Prophet, "You Arabs
excel us in all, in build, color, and in the possession of the Prophet. If I
believe, will I be with you in Paradise?" The Prophet answers, "Yes, and in
Paradise the whiteness of the Ethiopian will be seen over a stretch of a
thousand years. ,31

The moral of this and of countless other anecdotes and sayings of the same
kind is that piety outweighs blackness and impiety outweighs whiteness. This
is not the same as saying that whiteness and blackness do not matter. Indeed,
the contrary is implied in such tales as that of the pious black who turns white, and the parallel stories of white evildoers who turn black." A vivid example
occurs in the Risalat al-Ghufran, a vision of heaven and hell by the Syrian poet
Abu'l-`Ala' al-Ma'arri (973-1057). In paradise the narrator meets an exceedingly beautiful houri, who tells him that in life she was Tawfiq the Negress,
who used to fetch books for copyists in the Academy of Baghdad.

"But you were black," he exclaims, "and now you have become whiter
than camphor!"-to which she replies by quoting a verse: "If there were a
mustard-seed of God's light among all.the blacks, the blacks would become
white .,,3" The same association of light with good is shown in the Muslim
hagiographic literature, which depicts the Prophet himself as of white or
ruddy color. Similar descriptions are given of his wife `A'isha, his son-in-law
`Ali and his descendants, and even his predecessors, the prophets Abraham,
Moses, and Jesus.39

From both the expressions and the denunciations of racial prejudice, in
both general and religious literature, it is clear that a major transformation
had taken place. In ancient Arabia, as elsewhere in antiquity, racism-in the
modern sense of that word-was unknown. The Islamic dispensation, far
from encouraging it, condemns even the universal tendency to ethnic and
social arrogance and proclaims the equality of all Muslims before God. Yet,
from the literature, it is clear that a new and sometimes vicious pattern of
racial hostility and discrimination had emerged within the Islamic world.

This great change of attitude, within a few generations, can be attributed in
the main to three major developments.

The first of these is the fact of conquest-the creation by the advancing
Arabs of a vast empire in which the normal distinctions inevitably appeared
between the conquerors and the conquered. At first, Arab and Muslim were
virtually the same thing and the distinction could be perceived as religious. But
as conversions to Islam proceeded very rapidly among the different conquered
peoples, a new class came into existence-the non-Arab converts to Islam,
whose position in some ways resembled that of the native Christians in the
latter-day European empires. According to the doctrines of Islam-repeatedly
reaffirmed by the pious exponents of the Faith-the non-Arab converts were
the equals of the Arabs and could even outrank them by superior piety. But
the Arabs, like all other conquerors before and since, were reluctant to concede equality to the conquered; and for as long as they could, they maintained
their privileged position. Non-Arab Muslims were regarded as inferior and
subjected to a whole series of fiscal, social, political, military, and other disabilities. They were known collectively as the mawali (sing. mawla), a term the
primary meaning of which was "freedman." Many indeed were brought to
Islam by way of capture, enslavement, and manumission-a process reflected
in a famous if spurious hadith, according to which the Prophet said:

Will you not ask me why I laugh? I have seen people of my community who are
dragged to Paradise against their will. They asked, "0 Prophet of God, who
are they?" He said, "They are non-Arab people whom the warriors in the Holy
War have captured and made to enter Islam."'

Already in antiquity, some Greek philosophers had argued that slavery
was beneficial to the barbarian slave, in that it initiated him to a better and more civilized way of life. The religious version of this- of slavery as a road to
the blessings of Islam-later became a commonplace.` But the earliest converts who came by this road encountered difficulties.

A Spanish-Arab author, Ibn 'Abd Rabbihi (860-940), describes the attitude of the early Arabs to the non-Arab mawalf:

N5fi' ibn Jubayr ibn Mut'im gave precedence to a maw/a to lead him in prayer.
People spoke to him about this, and he said: "I wished to be humble before
God in praying behind him."

The same Nafi' ibn Jubayr, when a funeral passed by, used to ask who it was.
If they said: "A Qurashi," he would say: "Alas for his kinsfolk!" If they said:
"A mawla," he would say: "He is the property of God, Who takes what He
pleases and leaves what He pleases."

They used to say that only three things interrupt prayer-a donkey, a dog,
and a maw/a. The mawla did not use the kunya [part of an Arab name,
consisting of Abu-father of-followed by another personal noun, usually but
not always that of his son] but was addressed only by his personal name and byname. People did not walk side by side with them, nor allow them precedence
in processions. If they were present at a meal, they stood while the others sat,
and if a mawla, because of his age, his merit or his learning, was given food, he
was seated at the end of the table, lest anyone should fail to see that he was not
an Arab. They did not allow a maw/a to pray at funerals if an Arab was
present, even if the only Arab present was an inexperienced youth. The suitor
for a maw/a woman did not address himself to her father or brother, but to her
patron, who gave her in marriage or refused, as he pleased. If her father or
brother gave her in marriage without the patron's approval, the marriage was
invalid, and if consummated was fornication not wedlock.

It is related that 'Amir ibn 'Abd al-Qays, known for his piety, asceticism,
austerity and humility, was addressed in the presence of 'Abdallah ihn 'Amir,
the governor of Iraq, by Humran, the mawld of the Caliph 'Uthman ibn 'Affan.
Humran accused 'Amir of reviling and abusing the Caliph. 'Amir denied this,
and Humran said to him: "May God not multiply your kind among us!" To this
'Amir replied: "But may God multiply your kind among us!" 'Amir was asked:
"Does he curse you and do you bless him'?" "Yes," he replied, "for they sweep
our roads, sew our boots, and weave our clothes!"

'Abdallah ibn 'Amir, who was leaning, sat bolt upright, and said: "I didn't
think that you, with your virtue and your asceticism, knew about these things."
To which 'Amir replied: "I know more than you think I know!"3

The struggle for equal rights of the non-Arab converts was one of the main
themes of the first two centuries of Islam. Another theme of comparable
importance was the struggle of the half-breeds for equality with the fullbreeds. The Arab conquerors, despite the teachings of Islam and against the
protests of the pious, had, perhaps inevitably, ruled as a sort of conquistador
tribal aristocracy. Only true Arabs could belong, meaning those who were of
free Arab ancestry on both their father's and mother's side. Exercising the
immemorial rights of the conqueror, the Arabs took concubines among the
daughters of the conquered; but their offspring by these slave women were not considered full Arabs, and were not admitted to the highest positions of
power. Almost until the end of the Umayyad Caliphate, all the caliphs were
the sons of free Arab mothers; and it is clear that Umayyad princes who were
the sons of non-Arab slave women were not for one moment considered as
possible candidates for the succession. Even a gifted leader and commander
like Maslama' neither saw himself nor was seen by others as a possible claimant to the caliphate.