Abyad and the Black Arabs: Some Clarifications

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“Anyone who says that the Prophet is black should be killed”:

The De-Arabization of Islam and the Transfiguration of Muhammad in Islamic Tradition*

By Wesley Williams, PhD

Abstract

This paper argues that a convergence of evidences – linguistic, ethnographic, and literary – suggests that the earliest documented Arabs were likely a Kushite or dark-skinned group, probably derivative from a group of African ‘Proto-Semitic’ speakers that possibly entered the Levant from Africa several millennia before the Common Era. The Classical Arabic/Islamic literary sources confirm the same, that a noble Arab was a black-skinned Arab. This makes it most unlikely that the Islamic prophet Muhammad, reputedly a most noble Arab, was fair-skinned as in the popular imagination and in official and un-official representations, literary as well as visual. We have every reason to believe that the Islamic prophet was a black-skinned Arab, including explicit testimony in the literary sources. While testimony to a fair-skinned Muhammad is found there as well, this is no doubt a secondary development that was impacted by a profound shift in the demographic balance of power in the Muslim world that followed the 'Abbasid Revolution of 132/750. An ethnically Arab MuÈammad was no longer palatable to the tastes of a now ethnically diverse umma, and the changed status of Arabs and non-Arabs within the kingdom is reflected in the new representation of the Prophet. This study suggests the need for a closer look at the development of the racial ethic in Islam and the impact this development had on the the emerging Islamic tradition.

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Prophet Muhammad and the Black Arabs:

The Witness of Pre-Modern Chinese Sources



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The Shadow of God:

Incarnation and the Divine Body in Second Temple Priestly Tradition

A sapphiric-bodied deity, that is to say a deity (often a creator-deity) with an anthropomorphic body the color and substance of the mythologically significant semiprecious stone sapphire/lapis lazuli was a common ancient Near Eastern motif. As participant in the shared ANE mythological tradition could Israel envision her god similarly? We suggest thatIsrael could. By examining a number of biblical and post-biblical Jewish literatures we seek to demonstrate the existence of a probably esoteric tradition of a sapphiric-bodied Yahweh. We trace this tradition back to the priests of theJerusalemTemple. We also make an attempt to understand the mythological significance of a ‘sapphiric Yahweh’ in the context of the ancient Near Eastern tradition.  While a much more comprehensive study is required in order to determine whether this Jewish ‘Sapphiric God’ tradition is indigenous or the result of some later syncretism, the former seems more likely. If so, this tradition further demonstrates that the god ofIsrael and the gods of the ancient Near East differed less than has been traditionally supposed. 

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Sapphiric God:

Esoteric Speculation on the Divine Body in Post-Biblical Jewish Tradition

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The Black God and the Ancient Mysteries

Or, Why is Vishnu Dark Blue?

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