Welcome back. Black figures played a significant spiritual and social role in Islamic history. How have we gotten to a point now where our black Muslim brothers and sisters are targets of racism in our mosques and communities? To help us unpack this very unfortunate yet real issue, we have with us Imam Dawood Walid, co-author of the book Centering Black Narrative, Black Muslim Nobles Among the Early Pious Muslims. He is also the Executive Director of the Michigan Chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations.
Let's hear his thoughts on this issue now. Welcome to the show, Ma'am Dawood. Thank you very much. Pleasure to be on. So let's get right into the conversation about prominent black figures in Islamic history.
The one that I think a lot of people know about is Bilal. But are there other prominent figures in Islamic history? No doubt about it.
There are actually hundreds of... Muslims in early Islamic history amongst the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, who were black either coming from Ethiopian or Nubian background or themselves were black Arabs. How many people misread Islamic history is that they look at blackness and Arabness as being somewhat mutually exclusive identities.
But when we read the early history of Arabs and how they were predominantly... described, maybe they would look just like myself. For instance, Ali ibn Abi Talib, who was the fourth caliph and the cousin of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was described as being dark brown. That's the majority description of Ali.
So if he were walking the streets of Toronto, someone might think that he was West Indian, perhaps, or from somewhere like Somalia, but he was very Arab. So you I just wanted to make that clarification that there are or were several companions of the Prophet peace be upon him that came from Africa but there are many of them as well who were black and Arab. So you just talked about the idea of that blackness and being Arab is not exclusive to one another so for example Ali ibn Abi Talib if he's walking down the streets he would look like a black Muslim does. in today's society.
So how was that interpreted back then? Was the issue of blackness in Arab, did it ever become a point of contention back then? Well, back in those times, the societies were based more upon tribal lines and they didn't have the same type of structures or this concept of race as we have today. So for instance, people had their tribal identity as well as their national identity. So, There was some conflict in early Islamic history or preceding the revealing of the Quran regarding Ethiopians or Abyssinians and the actual Arabs because Ethiopian people had actually conquered the Arabs.
The Arabs had not at that time ever gone into ancient Abyssinia and conquered the Arabs, but it was the other way around. And there's even the Quran talks about this with the campaigns of the elephant. It's going back to Abraha who was the Negus or the emperor of ancient Ethiopia. Those people had occupied Yemen and were going up into the Hejaz in modern-day Saudi Arabia and were trying to actually take over Mecca. So that has to also be read and understood that when there are certain things in the history of the time of the companions, like when one companion named Abu Dhar.
called Bilal, O you son of a black woman, well, it wasn't necessarily about skin color per se, as we would see it, though it was a bigoted comment. Bilal's mother had been enslaved after the event of the Companions of the Elephant, and Abu Dhar's mother was a free woman, though Abu Dhar himself was described as being a black Arab himself, right? So it's more related to the relationship between the Arabs. of the Arabian Peninsula and how they had been subjugated by Ethiopians, by African people. And then, you know, Hamama, Bilal's mother, had been enslaved.
So it's very complex. When we read this history or read these books, we have to look at the historical context and not impose a 21st century understanding of race to try to impose that upon ancient or that old Islamic history. So would it be fair to say then that back then it wasn't really about race or understanding blackness in terms of the color of the skin, but more about the tribal heritage and the lineage and that kind of thing, and that's where that came from?
In the time of the Companions of the Prophet, prayers and peace be upon him, the second generation, the discrimination that took place is not the exact same way as we see anti-black racism, where you have a lot of different historical... Occurrences that have taken place including colonialism, white normalization, that aspirational whiteness that leads to people playing out certain anti-black behaviors or anti-black depictions. It's a very different historical situation.
What about the Arab black literature that existed historically that we have now? Was there anything in there that you know people can read now or even read or even back then and said okay this is kind of racist to me? There definitely is. things like that in the literature. If one were to look at the The historical governance of the Muslim community, you see it the first rulers or governors after the Prophet, peace be upon him, or called the rightly guided Caliphs.
After them was the tribe of Umayyad and after the tribe of Umayyad was the tribe of Abbas. During the rule of the tribe of Abbas, the Arabs then began to, from Bani Abbas, the tribe of Abbas, began to marry or have children by Persian women, as well as women from the Byzantine Empire. And from that time, and them becoming to be lighter and actually begin to fetishize lighter skin, there then began to be anti-black racism or anti-black pronouncements that began to come about vis-a-vis this relationship where the ruling class... began to be much more lighter and began to prefer lighter skinned women in which then their children who became the rulers became much lighter. So, for instance, there's a jurist, a famous jurist during that time of the Abbasids.
I won't mention his name out of etiquette, but he's a famous jurist. He was asked a question or posed a question, can a Zenge or a black... person from a particular area of East Africa, can they marry one of the daughters of Fatima?
Fatima being the daughter of Prophet Muhammad, prayers and peace be upon him. And this jurist said that he completely despised it, right? He hated it. Like he, even the thought of it reviled him. So obviously the Prophet Muhammad, prayers and peace be upon him, he arranged marriages between Arabs.
And Africans or black people, including his cousin Duba'a bint Zubair, he married her to a companion, al-Makdad ibn al-Aswad, right? So the prophet himself didn't have a problem with any of his kin marrying a black man, but this came up into the Islamic history. We'll see.
like maybe 200 years after the passing of Prophet Muhammad. So do we have any examples of when these kinds of instances came? You know, obviously this was after the time of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. How society dealt with it at that time?
Because we're grappling with that in this day and age, right? Well, there's two ways it was dealt with. One, it was dealt with intellectually and academically. There was a scholar during that time named Al-Jahid, who wrote a book called, what is believed to be the... the first book on zoology, Kitab al-Hayawan.
He also was a poet and a linguist. He wrote a book, which basically is the first book that we see in Islamic history that began to uplift and show the notable traits of black people and people from Africa. So he addressed this issue of anti-blackness intellectually.
However, there were people of African descent under the Abbasid rule. that were involved in the uprising along with poor marginalized Arabs who were also marginalized in that society. This is called Thawat Zinj or sometimes translated as the Black Rebellion or sometimes the Negro Revolution.
So this issue of anti-blackness was dealt with intellectually, but also because the marginalization of black people in society in southern Iraq, actually there was a type of... coalition or solidarity between marginalized Arabs and marginalized black people that literally took up arms and rebelled against the lighter skinned Abbasids. And obviously that's very powerful I think, but also now thinking back to Quran and Hadith, was that influenced in any way that we can relate it back to this conversation? Okay, well in olden times there was a fluid relationship between Abyssinia or ancient Ethiopia and Africans.
There were trade that had been going on for centuries. There also was the issue of some conflicts that took place, which I mentioned before, that the ancient Ethiopians had conquered the Yemen and the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. Over time, there were certain words that were Ethiopian words, words that came from the Ge'ez language.
Because of this interaction, that were amalgamated or assimilate into the Arabic language. So there are several scholars, Ibn al-Jawzi, which is a great Hanbali scholar, wrote about this. Etabari, who was a Persian scholar, exegete of the Quran, mentioned this in his tafsir, that there are certain Arabic words that got absorbed into the Arabic language, which then became part of Arabic.
that are in the Quran. For instance, there is one example where there's a chapter in the Quran called Yaseen. And if one were to read a Tabari's explanation of one of the possible explanations of what Yaseen is, it means, oh man, or oh human being, in the Ethiopian, or what we say Habashi, the ancient Ethiopian language.
So there are also in prophetic traditions. of the Prophet, praise and peace be upon him. There are also other words, a few words that have been used that were initially Ethiopian terminology, nomenclature, that got absorbed into the Arabic language. So obviously there's a lot here that I, you know, I personally have never heard of this, and I know when I was perusing through your book as well, it really struck me.
So if someone's watching, this is the first time they're hearing something like this, and they say, well... You know, I know enough about black Muslims and their contribution. I always read about Bilal. You know, I know enough about him. What would your response be to someone who says, it's okay, Ma'am Dawood, I got it, I understood this.
I'm just going to go back and review my history on Bilal and I'm going to be good. Well, Bilal is the Sayyid or the master of those who call the prayer. The only one of the companions who called the prayer on top of the Kaaba in the holy city of Mecca. He's a very important figure, has a high... spiritual station but we did not mention Bilal on purpose because many people know about Bilal though they don't know his full history right they know only a few things about him but he's also been tokenized that sometimes Muslims have said oh well you know we Muslims can't be a racist because we love Bilal right which of course is there's no racism in Islam but Muslims definitely can be racist right it's kind of like saying oh I can't be racist one of my best friends is black right So we did not mention Bilal in the book I co-authored, Centering Black Narrative, Black Muslim Nobles Among the Early Pious Muslims, specifically.
But we mentioned a number of other noteworthy characters who were black Muslims in the early generation, especially highlighting the role of women. So one example is a woman by the name of Baraka, which means blessing. Her nickname, she's known as Umm Ayman or the Mother of Ayman.
She was a nanny. of Prophet Muhammad, prayers and peace be upon him. And there are authentic narrations where Prophet Muhammad said, Umm Ayman is my mother after my blood mother, his mother Amina.
So this Heba Shia Ethiopian woman was very beloved by Prophet Muhammad, prayers and peace be upon him. And she was his nanny, right? So that just goes to show you one person that we... I mentioned in our book also Sumeya who has Habashi or Ethiopian lineage in her background.
Sumeya was the first martyr in Islam amongst the companions. When we look at the movie Arisala, also called The Message, it has her looking like a Greek woman. Well, no, that's a historically inaccurate depiction.
She was a black woman, no doubt about it, by consensus of what our textual evidence says. So these are the types of individuals, noble Muslims who are black, many of them women that we highlighted in our book. Thank you so much Imam Dawood.
I know I personally learned a lot from this conversation and I'm sure our viewers have as well. So thanks again for sharing all of your information and extremely valuable insight. My pleasure.
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