When Arabia was Eastern Ethiopia (Part 3) – by – Dana Marniche
It should be understood that many of the names of Cushitic speaking tribes today in the horn of Africa – Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia/Eritrea – were also known in early Arabia. In Somalia such clans as the Yahar, Darood, the Mahra or Maheyra of Somalia and the Yemen, Makhar or Makir (Machir), Bin Sama’al or Somali(or Sam’al and El Sama of Yemen), Rahawein (ancient Rahawiyyin or Ru’ayn or Rahawi of Yemen) and smith clans such the Hubir (Heber), Yubir, Sabi, Tumal and Wubar (or Wabar) are mentioned in ancient times and through the early Islamic period as Himyarite and Sabaean tribes in South Arabian inscriptions., They are in fact, found in earlier Mesopotamian inscriptions and later Arabic documents. The phrase as divided as the Sabaeans as Diop mentioned has everything to do with this dispersal.
Other tribes located today both in Arabia and in Africa claiming descent from Himyar and Kahlan, descendants of Qahtan, through Abd Shams Saba or Saba and his sons Himyar and Kahlan are the Afar (Afari or Afariyyah in Arabia), and Danakil or Anagil, (Nakh’l, Nakhawila or An-Nakha al Nakha of Arabia) and many other tribes. Thus, the bulk of the tall Cushitic speakers of Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea and Puntland are likely derived from African peoples who had settled in ancient times in south Arabia. This settlement very likely began during the Neolithic and/or Copper Age (between 7th and the 3rd millennium B.C. )when elements of the Doian neolithic of Somalia begin to appear in the Rub al Khali and tall, oval-headed “Negroids” as Anati put it, begin to appear in the rock art of the Central Arabian and Syrian Arabian deserts.
Another group of African affiliation appeared in the rock art along the coasts of Arabia, and this population was tied to the smaller or shorter-statured populations that appeared in the deserts of Egypt and Sudan as well as along the Nile in both places in the proto-dynastic period. This group was no doubt related to the Beja or Bega populations and the names of the Beja or Bega or Buga as they were called in earlier writings appear on both sides of the Arabia Sea as well. They include the Beza’a or Bayzan , Beni Amer or Amir, Abdah or Ababdah, Huweitat, Atmaan, Umar’ar, Hada or Hadandowa, Bishari, Erigat, Orteyga, Bediyat,. The Beja of Sudan of modern Eritrea and Egypt are descendants of ancient Afro-Arabian bedouin who had intermixed with later Islamic Arabians coming from Hejaz through Sinai during the hegemonic period of Islam. They in fact have always extended up to Sinai and into the area of Transjordan. They are also traditionally called Matat or Madid which may be related to the ancient Egyptian name for peoples in these same regions – “Madjayu”.
The most recent wave of Arabian origin to enter the region of Sudan and East Africa are the people whose names are still found on both sides of the Nile are the Sudanese Arabs who came after the birth of Muhammed and until the 18th century. They include the Manasse’ir (Mansour), Kababish or Kabsh, Beni Amer, Ja’aliya or Ja’aliin, Bishari’in, Humr, Muzeina, Haweitat, Hamar, Rufa or Ruwafa, Khuzam, Salamat,, Hamid, Gerar, Hamran, Mugharba, Lahawi, Ma’aza. Habbaniyya, Mahass, Rashaida, Djerafin (Terapin), Hawara, Kuwahla, Bayza’a, Rikab, Shaikyia, Dhubaniyya and Mesiria to name just a few. These tribes are in part and in full the descendants of tribes of the Arabian bedouin of North Africa Rabia, Sulaym, Hilal, and Ghatafan who began emigrating from the Hejaz area of northwestern Arabia into Egypt as early as the 9th c. A.D. and continued their immigration as late as a few centuries ago. They had originally conquered Egypt and North Africa and finally moved southward into Sudan, Chad and Eritrea.
The Last Living Descendants of Shem
Early Muslim writers outside of Arabia were often confused on the origin of the true Arabs. They sometimes divided them into Ishmaelites and Qahtanis or northern Arabians and southern ones. But most northern Arabian bedouin had traditions of coming from the Yemen from the kingdom of Himyar or Humayr and Saba who were descendants of Qahtan, while the dark skinned tribes of Qahtan in the Yemen in fact claimed an African origin.
Qahtan is sometimes said to be a child of A’abar or Abir (Biblical Eber or Heber) and otherwise of Asmah who was apparently the Isma’il of later writings. In addition Qahtan (Joktan) son of Abir (Eber) whose brothers were Aram (Aram), Awza or Aus (Uz) had fathered Amalek and A’d (the latter’s name was derived from Adah) are all closely related peoples in Arabian tradition. Amalek in particular ruled from Sana’a in the far southwest corner of Arabia in modern Yemen to Syria at one time. All historical accounts state that the near descendant (great grandson) of Qahtan was Saba (Seba) whose two sons according to most accounts were Himyar (or Humayr) and Kahlan (Nakhete Kalnis of Ethiopian genealogy). These went on to populate the whole of Arabia and to rule a great part of the ancient world under leaders such as Numayr ibn Qassit (Nimrod), the Amelekite rulers Cathim (Heth of the Hittites or Cetimus of Mythology), Anak and Sheshi the Hittite rulers of Canaan, Ak (Og), Kabus, Djurham or Darim (Hadoram) and the Sabaeans or Adite kings of Himyar such as Murath’ad from whom came the name of the Banu Murad (Amurath or Amorites), Akk ( Og the Amorite king of the Rephaim), Al Modad or Al Matat(Almodad), Numan, Ma’afir , and the later Himyarite rulers Awal (Hevila) Dhu’l Karnein and Afrikus who colonized Africa. Incidentally the rulers Anak and Sheshai have been identified as names of the Hyksos rulers Nakhi and Sheshi in Egypt by archeologist David Rohl.
1872A.D. -On the inhabitants of southwest Arabia in Yemen, “The inhabitants of this part of Arabia nearly all belong to the race of Himyar. Their complexion is almost as black as the Abyssinians,” see p. 121 in “Geography of Southern Arabia” by Baron von Maltzan, in Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Vol. 16, No. 2 , pp. 115-123.
1900 – In this year the sultan of the tribe of Yafa’a described as of “greenish brown” color See Mabel and Theodore Bent Southern Arabia p. 403
1932- Bertram Thomas describes individuals of southern Arabia. Men of the Yafi’i or Yafa’a clans of Ahl Yazid fuzzy haired, greenish–brown and Yahar tribe of the Yafa’a as dark chocolate Anthropological Observations in South Arabia, Bertram Thomas in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Insdtitute of Great Britain and Ireland Vol. 62 83-103 Jan-June 1932. On a sultan of the Yafa’ai tribe who claim descent from Himyar ibn Qahtan through the tribe of al Haf. They are likely the Haiappa or Chayafa who figure in Assyrian inscriptions circa 8th c. B.C.. and the Ephah of the Bible.
1927 – “The people of Dhufar are of the Qahtan tribe, the sons of Joktan mentioned in Genesis: they are of Hamitic or African rather than Arab types…” See page 236 in “A Periplus of the Persian Gulf”, Arnold Wilson. The Geographical Journal Vol. 69l, No. 3 March 1927, pp. 235-255. (The Dhufar talked about here are the mountains of Oman.)
1929- Bertram Thomas on the modern remnants of the ancient Qahtan tribes: “…these tribes – with the exception of the Harasis – have a tradition of African origin, the order of their local antiquity being Shahara, Bautahara, Mahra, Qara.” Found in The South Eastern Borderlands of Rub-al Khali, Bertram Thomas vol. 73 (LXXIII) No. 3 March 1929.
1932 – Bertram Thomas also observed individuals from a number of clans in the Yemen a man from a tribe called Mashai’a man is described as “very dark brown” The Shahara are “dark brown” and the Bait Marhum of the Kathiri (Keturah) tribe are similarly described. Found in Anthropological Observations in South Arabia The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 62, (Jan. – Jun., 1932), pp. 83-103 The photos of a Mashai’a man and Shahara (of Sheherazade fame) and Kathiri children, Mahra and Qara can be found in Bertram Thomas books. The Shahara are a clan affiliated with the Mahra. The Mashai’a are those mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions. It has also been written or translated as Maasaai.
2001 – “Mahra is the Arab name for the Bedouin tribes who are different in appearance to other Arabs, having almost beardless faces, fuzzy hair and dark pigmentation – such as the Qarra, Mahra and Harasis… Also on “…the Qarra, Mahra and Harasis with parts of other tribes. The language is derived from the language of the Sabaeans, Minaeans and Himyarites. The Mahra with other Southern Arabian peoples seem aligned to the Hamitic race of north-east Africa… The Mahra are believed to be descended from the Habasha, who colonized Ethiopia in the first millennium BC” p. 250-251, Peoples on the Move by David Phillips, 2001.
Ancient Origins of the Afro-Arabian Qara tribes (also written Qarra, Gara, Kara)
The Qara or Kara claim descent from the Azdites of Kindah kingdom which existed in Central Arabia and the Persian Gulf. The Azd are descendants of Qahtan through Kahlan son of Himyar. They are among those remnants of peoples who claim they came from Africa at a remote period. The dialects of the Qara is related to the pre Arabic dialects of ancient Saba, Himyar and Ethiopia.
1929 – Bertram Thomas describes the Qara or Kara as “the most prosperous tribe of all the Hamitic group, possessing innumerable camels, herds of cattle and the richest frankincense country. They resemble the Bisharin tribe of the Nubian desert. Men of big bone , they have long faces long narrow jaws, noses of a refined shape long curly hair and brown skin.” Quoted on p. 200 in Richmond Palmer’s, The Bornu Sahara ans Sudan 1970 originally published 1936 by John Murray of London. The Qara are actually rather short in stature as well.
2004 On the Qara, “European observers have made much of their physical resemblance to Somalis and Ethiopians, but there is no historical evidence of any connections.” P. 261 J. E. Peterson “Oman’s Diverse Society: Southern Oman”, Middle East Journal Vol. 38, No. 2 Spring 2004.
Claudius Ptolemy mentions the town of “Gerra” in the Geographos (2nd cent CE). Strabo appears to have referred to them as Gerraeans salt traders in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea says they were the Chaldeans pushed from Harran (which was apparently Arabian Hauran) by Nebudchadnezzer. He wrote, “the Gerrhaeans have become the richest of all; and they have a vast equipment of both gold and silver articles, such as couches and tripods and bowls, together with drinking vessels and very costly houses; for doors and wall and ceilings are variegated with ivory and gold and silver set with precious stones.” (Frankincense and Myrrh, A Study of Arabian Incense Trade, Nigel Groom, p. 67).
“The city of Gerrha played a central role in the interchange of commodities of certain regions of the ArabianPeninsula during the reign of the Seleucid King Antioch III (223 – 187 BC) of Syria. Most notable was the frankincense and myrrh of southwestern Arabia in the Yemen and Hadramawt regions. Juba and Pliny refer to the city of Gerrae as Carra as mentioned in his Natural History 1.161-62 an Arabian tribe called Carrae or Carraeans who had the most extensive and fertile agricultural lands in Arabia.
The Qarra or Kara tribe also carry on a salt trade that was one of the hallmarks of the ancient Gerrhaeans or Carrae. Some have tried to relate the name of Carraeans to that of Hagar while others probably more accurately see some correlation with the Korahites of Southwest Arabia who appear to be the Biblical Korah.
TITLE: Fear of Blackness: Descriptions and Ethnogenesis of the original Afro-Arabian tribes of “Moorish” Spain
PART I
“…a fair-skinned Arab is something inconceivable… “ Ibn Abd Rabbu in El Iqd el Farid (The Unique Necklace) quoting Shuraik el-Qadi a 7th century Arab of the clan of Nakha’l of the Maddhij in the Yemen.
“…the Arabs describe their color as black and they describe the color of the non-Arab Persians as red.” Assertion of grammarian Ibn Manzur or Mandhur, in Lisaan al Arab, Vol. 4 (born in Tunis or northern Egypt).
“Red, in the speech of the people from Hejaz means fair-complexioned, and this color is rare amongst the Arabs. This is the meaning of the saying … a red man as if he is one of the slaves.” From Seyar A’laam al-Nubalaa, vol. 2, by the Syrian Al-Dhahabi (Thahabi),of the century 13th -14th c. a.d., cited in The Unknown Arabs, by Tariq Berry.
“…most Arabs are dark brown in color.” 13th c. Ibn Mandhur, Lisaan al Arab, Vol. 4.
The above quotes cited in The Unknown Arabs, Tariq Berry, published, 2002.
Batn – clan; literally meaning ‘from the belly of”
Ibn, bin, banu, beni – meaning “son of”
Harrah or el Harra the volcanic region stretching from
Hejaz the western stretching from
Nejd – central Arabian land including Riyadh
Sudan – the area south of the Sahara and the same latitudes in Arabia.
Totemism – veneration of ancestral consciousness represented by animal names with cosmological significance and associations.
The Yemen – the southern part of the Arabian peninsula
The following treatise documents the tribes of Afro-Arabians descended from the original occupants of the Arabian peninsula. Although the Arabians were not the first to be called Moors, it was the color of the people leaving the Arab peninsula from the peninsula of Arabia that was mainly due the use of the term “Moor” for black and woolly haired people in Spain, France, Italy and other parts of Europe in Islamic times. When the Chanson de Roland which speaks of the time of the Moorish battles in Gallic France speaks of “those hordes and hordes blacker than the blackest ink – no shred of white on them except their teeth…” it is no mere exaggeration. Anyone familiar with the Arabic writings of the Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian historians up until the 14th century that this is exactly their description of many of the early “pure” Arab clans of the Arabian peninsula.
Therefore, the use of the term “Afro-Arabian” in this article refers to the inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula who long after the time of Mohammed shared the appearance of sub-Saharan Africans, as well as customs of present day Africans stretching from the present country of Sudan to Somalia in the East to Mauritania, Mali and Nigeria in the West and other parts of Africa.
Totemism, ancestral veneration, including knowing the genealogy of cattle and sheep back many generations (almost all early Arabian tribal names are also the names of their animals and have an astronomical reference), matrifocal societies (including worship of Goddesses), the wearing of cowry shells, nose rings, plaited and totemic hair-styles, ululations, hennaed limbs and scarred faces are all African-associated traits and customs most of which date back several thousand years into the Neolithic.
These are the facts of pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabia, which is why the Greeks and Romans considered Arabia an extension of Ethiopia and for Syrians much of Arabia was considered part of the Sudan long after the time of the prophet Muhammed. (See Richmond Palmer’s, Bornu, Sahara and Sudan with regard to the Syrian Al Omari). It was from this colony of “blacks” (as the original Arabs invariably called themselves), that the numerous tribes of the men Europeans once called “Moors” left after the time of the Muslim prophet to also spread over parts of the Middle East, North Africa and the Iberian peninsula.
Although Iranians had settled the Yemen or south of the peninsula in the centuries immediately preceding the Prophet Mohammed; though Turks, Circassians, mercenaries, concubines and slaves from all parts of he world had come to settle the land of the Arabs later in Islamic times, large numbers of inidigenous peoples of African appearance still occupy the peninsula Arabia preserving their indigenous and original Afro-Arab customs.
Descriptions and Ethnogenesis of the Original Arabs:
The tribes leaving the north and central parts of Arabia occupying the Hejaz and Nejd can be divided into major branches. They include those traditional genealogy called “Ishmaelites” or descendants of Kedar, like the tribes of Qays ibn Ailan or El Nas and El Yas, and the Rabi’ah and Wa’il all based in the central regions of the peninsula. Many of these were “the Saracens” whom Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman general of the 4th c. A.D. claimed had originated “from the cataracts of the Nile” in Sudan.
It is the north and central group of Arabians inhabiting the Jordan, the Harra and the Nejd whose ancestors came to be called Ishmaelites, descendants of Thamud (the second A’d), Kedar and Naba’it (all traditionally children of Ismail). (The Nabataeans were among those known also as Amurru or Amorites in late Assyrian texts.)
In the tradition of Syria and in the later European Jewish or Rabbinic tradition the term “Kushi” signified black peoples, and in fact, became a derogatory term. A European Jewish Targum text Song 1:5 employs the phrase “as black as the Kushi who live in the tents of Kedar.”
Because many of the indigenous Arabian people of Jordan and Hejaz were near black in color and claim descent from the Kedar, Kinanniyya, Kana’ani or Cana’an, or Nabataeans (such as the modern Haweit’at), the Syrians and others who adopted Arabic nationality or who had been colonized by the Arabs, came to presume names such as Nabit, Kedar, Kanaan meant “black” people.
David Goldberg’s author of The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity and Islam wrote “Dimashqi, who lists the Nabataeans (Nbt) among the descendants of Ham together with the Copts, the BrBr (Berbers) and the Sudan … and the Akkbar al Zaman, which lists the Nabit , among the children of Canaan… also said the word, ‘Nabit’ signifies ‘black’…” see p. 313 The 10th c. Al Masudi of Baghdad , is thought to have written the text, Akbar al Zaman. Al Dimashqi of Syria belonged to the 13th century.
In the southern part of Arabia the modern Qahtan Arabs’ are descendants of e the peoples known mainly as Sabaeans, Himyarites, Ma’in and Azd (also called Asad, Zayyed or Sid) in Arab genealogy. These came to spread north and became the progenitors of many “Ismailites” . Thus, many groups have genealogies which make them both north Arabian descendants of Ismail and Qahtan through the Azdites (Zayyed) or Maddhij of Yemen descendants of Himyar and Kahlan sons of Saba. Most of the living Qahtan tribes told the European colonial ethnographers that they came in remote times from Africa. Thus, Bertram Thomas in 1929 said that the Shahara (Banu Shahr), Mahra or Maheyra, and Bautahara and Qarra or Kara had “a tradition of African origin” in “The Southeastern Borderlands of the Rub-al Khali”,in Geography Journal, Vol. 73, 3. These clans are described as having a dark pigmentation and fuzzy hair as recently as 2001 (see David Philips, Peoples on the Move, pp. 250-251).
In 1872, von Maltzan wrote on the inhabitants of southwest Arabia in Yemen, “The inhabitants of this part of Arabia nearly all belong to the race of Himyar. Their complexion is almost as black as the Abyssinians,” see p. 121 in “Geography of Southern Arabia” by Baron von Maltzan, in Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Vol. 16, No. 2 , pp. 115-123.
On the Qara it was recently written, “European observers have made much of their physical resemblance to Somalis and Ethiopians…” P. 261 J. E. Peterson “Oman’s Diverse Society: Southern Oman”, Middle East Journal Vol. 38, No. 2 Spring 2004.
NORTHERN ARABIAN “ISHMAELITES” IN SPAIN – EL NAS AND AL YAS
THE QAYS AILAN BIN MUDAR – DESCRIPTIONS AND SETTLEMENT IN SPAIN: The descriptions of the Qays clans families and individuals are many. To the Qays Ailan groups belonged the famous northern Arabian tribes of the Harra and Hejaz including the well-described children of Mansur (Mansour or Manas’ir) Sulaym bin Mansur, Mazin bin Mansur and Hawazin bin Mansour whose sub clans are in the dozens. The descendants Mansur bin Ikrima bin Khasafa bin Qays bin Ailan in Arabia, like most early Arabs in Arabia are referred to as black and dark brown in texts. Although they were famous for their slave raiding and use of Greco- Romans or (Rum) concubines in ancient times, many clans, in fact, remain near black in color in the peninsula today.
Al Jahiz (9th c.) and Ibn Athir, the Kurd (12th -13th c.) refer to the Sulaym bin Mansour in particular as “pure” Arabs and “black” in color, not simply dark brown which was also common in the Hejaz. Al Jahiz said that all the tribes of the Harra an area south of Jordan and extending into Hejaz were black like the lava and animals in the region.
Some Sulaym (Sulaym ibn Mansour bin Ikrima bin Khasafa) had settled in North Africa and entered Spain with the first governor of Andalusia, Abd el Azziz ibn Musa, and others also settled in Tudmir. But most of the clans of early settlers from the Qays tribes of Sulaym, Ghatafan, Fahm, Abs, and Dhubyan (Zubyan) of the Ghatafan or Ghutayf came later from Jazira in Mesopotamia where they had been settled for some time.
Ghatafan bin Sa’ad bin Qays Ailan, “settled the plain of Granada in a village called Ibra” in Spain, while the Abs of the Ghatafan (Abs bin Baghid bin Raith bin Ghatafan) settled in Jaen. (See bib. Taha, below) An early eyewitness upon seeing the Abs tribe in Arabia describes them as “black-skinned men shaking their spears and digging in the earth with their feet.” (the Unknown Arabs, p. 780). Both Ghutayf and Abs are originally known as batn or clans of the dark-skinned Murad of the Maddhij in Yemen according to original sources mentioned in, The Yemen in Early Islam, 1988.
The clans of Hawazin bin Mansour, like those of his brothers Sulaym and Mazin bin Mansour were also described in early Arabia. Among their modern remnants are the black and tall Dawasir of Yemama and the “dark brown” Utayba and the lithe short “chocolate colored” Hamida of the Harb.
“A great number of Hawazin settled in Seville and Valencia” others settled in Elvira and Grenada. (see Taha, p. 135 The Muslim Conquest…)
Circa 1879, the famed British adventurer Sir Richard Burton describing the Hamida as a large clan of the Banu Salim bin Auf of Hejaz, Sir Richard Francis Burton describes the men as, “small chocolate colored beings, stunted and thin… with mops of bushy hair… straggling beards , vicious eyes, frowning brows … armed with scabbards slung over the shoulder and Janbiyyah daggers…” a people “of the great Hejazi tribe that has kept his blood pure for the last 13 centuries…” ( Burton in Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to el Medina and Mecca .p. 173 3rd edition William Mullen and Son.)
Concerning the Otaiba (also written Ateyba, Utaiba, Ateibe, etc.) a century ago, James Hamilton wrote , “they wore their hair in long curly plaits” and their skin was “a dark brown”. See pp. 129-130, Wanderings Around the Birthplace of Mohammed, published by R. Bentley, 1857.
Mazin bin Mansour’s descendants:
Clans of Khazraj and Aus based in Medina and the surrounding area are tribes whose individuals are often described in Arabic texts. When individuals of these tribes are described by non-Arabian writers, they are usually called ‘black- skinned” and “huge” or massive in stature making it likely this group originally from the Yemen belong to the remnants of the old Ubaid or Obeid stock of neolithic Arabia and Syria, whom are described as having unusually “large bodies” and “negroid” aspect by early anthropologists like Archibald Sayce. The Ubaid crania show a people that with long, wide noses.
The Khazraj (Gezer) and Aus (Uz) are the tribes from which came most of the Ansar or “companions” of Mohammed, the Prophet. One famous leader of the Ansar visiting the Byzantine ruled Egypt, Obadah bin Samit an aristocrat and chief of the Khazras or Khazaraj is described as “black” and by tradition was over 8 ft tall, which may be an exaggeration of course, but then again may not have been. The famous Mohammed ibn Maslama of the Aus clan of al Ansar is also “tall, black-skinned, and huge.” By Ibn Saad (9th century Baghdad, Iraqi) in El-Tabaqat El Kubra vol. 3. (See Berry). While El Baladhuri (a 9th century Iranian ) also calls Nabtali ibn Harith from the Aus Ansar as tall, jet black and huge, with nappy hair”. See Tariq Berry’s book, The Unknown Arabs for more description of members of Aus and Khazraj.
Most of the Medina al Ansar settled in the region of Saragossa in Spain. (See Taha, p. 118) The Khazraj clan of Sa’d bin Abada settled in Qarabalan near Saragossa in Spain, while the Aramramma clan settled Sidonia and Cordoba and “later moved to Elvira, Grenada, Toledo, Tortua and Jerica in the province of Castellon.”
ELYAS (ELIAS BIN MUZAR, MUZIR OR MUDAR)
Muzar’s other descendants were the clans of Elyas of the southern Hejaz. When the tribes and individuals of the clans of Elyas are described, they are described in writings as “dark brown” or “black”. They were centered in Hejaz or western Arabia stretching southward toward the Yemen. The El Yas or Elias bin Muzir or Mudar was exemplified by the Kinaniyya or Kinana bin Khuzaima bin Mudrika bin Elyas (who became famously known as the Canaanites) from which came Mohammed’s tribe of the Qureish, and the tribes of Tamim bin Murra, Hudhail, Nadir, Mustaliq, Makhzumi and Zahra.
Elyasa or Elias included the famous Kinana who were described in EuropeanJewish Talmudic texts as “black, thieving people” with “large male members”. Wah ibn Munabbih a 7th century descendant of Iranian mercenaries who had settled in the Yemen just before the period of Islam also made Cana’an “black”, being quite familiar with the Kinaaniyya tribe of Hejaz. The Banu Umaayya who founded the Umayyad dynasty of Islam among the clans descended from tribes of Qureish founded the Umayyad dynasty.
Some Kinana or Kinaniyya who now live in Jericho today, the modern state of Israel are black, and many with the keenest features are jet black. (Some have tried to say they descend from Nubian slaves, which may be the case, but certainly not for the blacker ones.) The Quraish clan of the Kinaniyya were with Musa’s army (the first Arab governor in of Al-Andalus in Spain). Kinana also came to live in Jaen in Spain.
When individuals of the Qureish clan of the Kinana in Arabia especially relatives of the Prophet are mentioned in texts they described as black. Ali, the son of the prophet’s cousin described as ‘black skinned” by the Turkish and Iranian writer el Suyuti and by Ibn Saad, a Baghdad, Iraqi of the 8th c. in El Tabaqat ael Kabra vol. 8. (cited in Berry). Ali’s great grandson according to Kitab el Aghani by Esfahani of Central Asia was “black skinned and huge”.
The Zuhra clan of Qureish settled Saragossa. A member of the Banu Zuhra in Arabia named Saad ibn Waqqas is called very dark, “tall” and “flat-nosed” by El Dhahabi, of Syria. While Jahiz of Iraq calls him black-skinned and huge. Yazid ibn Muawia from the Qureish clan of Abd Manaf is called black-skinned and huge” al Dhahabi of the 14th century(cited in Tarik Berry, The Unknown Arabs).
The tribe of Hudhail bin Mudrika bin El Yas settled Murcia and Saragossa. El Baladhuri, the 9th century Iranian, describing Abdella ibn Mas’ud, a famous member of the Hudhail clan of Arabians says he was “short, thin and black”. (p. 17 Berry). Tabikha was brother of Mudrika in the genealogy. When the Central Asian or Iranian writer Al Esfahan (from Esfahan in Iran) described an Arab of the clan of Tabikha and Banu Asad he described him as “black- skinned” with “black eyes”. According to Taha (p. 1376, The Muslim Conquest…), Banu Asad bin Khuzaima bin Mudrika settled in al Bushra near the Sierra Nevada mountains and Barajila.
The Muslim Conquest and Settlement of North Africa and Spain, by Abdul Wahid Taha, 1989.
CENTRAL ARABIAN TRIBES OF THE NEJD IN SPAIN Part II To Be Continued
sorry sir
tarik berry have slave roots not arab roots his delirium about that pure arabs are black is only desastrous and pitty for the black cause because pure arabs are white and even whiter than europeans .
Omar
Little lickspittle semi-illiterates like you have no place in scholarly discussions.
Now take some lessons:
The only pink Arab there was came from central Europe. The original Arabs are all from Africa, like the Yemenites, the Omanites, the Saudi Arabs, the Iraqis and the Shirazi Persians.
The great Umar, one of the early caliphs of Islam was known as the Black Caliph. I suppose that is because his hair is “black” eh?
True Arabs are black people and this got nothing to do with Tarik Berry’s ethnicity.
A quick image search on google and Youtube will make the wool fall off your jaundiced eyes.
BTW: Where you from originally? Azerbaijan or Turkmenistan?
This Omar is like the bulk of his people :
– Ignorant
– Racist
– Negrophobic
But it’s not their fault though, because their “scholars” never speak about the true original arabs i.e The CUSHIM or Ethiopians of the old Testament.
In modern “Arab” history , everything black was a slave, and everything white was his master. This is how they corrupted Arabia history.
For example the great Cushitic king Luqman (as) who is praised in the Qu’ran for his knowledge , faith and wisdom is described as a former slave by the contemporary commentators.
You have 2 Great phophets of God Almighty who are described as BROWN men in the Hadiths , but these facts are hidden from the bulk of ignorant people like this guy:
– Moses (as ) : Bukhari 3439, Bukhari 3394, Muslim 423, Tirmidhi 3130
– Jesus or Issa Ibn Maryam (as) : Bukhari 3439, 3440, Muslim 7289, Musnad Ahmad 2/37
Furthermore, Moses (as) is described as a man from the tribe of Shanu’ah who were very dark ( brown skin) like the companion , Said Ibn Al Khudri (ra).
In an other Hadith Moses (as ) is described as follow : ” brown complexion, straight hair and tall stature as though he was of the men of Az – Zutt”.
These two examples tell us that many original arab tribes were of brown or black complexion.
The Oldest and True Arabians came from Ethiopia, and when the first muslims were persecuted they looked for refuge not in Persia, or Palestine but in ETHIOPIA . Is it not a sign ???
The African Negus Ashamah protected them against the Qoraish.
There were many black noble Arabs :
– Zaid Ibn Harithah (ra) was a black and Noble Arab, kidnapped during a razzia and sold as slave…
– Amr Ibn Al As (ra) was a black and noble Arab…
– Ubadah Ibn As Samit (ra) was a black and noble Arab…
The old Arabian society was divided between two classes : Masters and Slaves .
Safiur Rahman Al Mubarakpuri who wrote “The Sealed Nectar” (awarded first prize by the muslim world league) says :
” The three Arab regions adjacent to foreigners suffered great weakness and inferiority. The people were either masters or slaves, rulers or subordinates. Masters, especially the foreigners , had claim to every advantage…” Page 36
Persians had many arab slaves…before the advent of islam…
Many white semitic Arabs ( from the North) were themselves slaves. It was the evil of the pre-islamic nomadic society . I’m stronger than you so I steal your stuff (razzia) and enslave you and your tribe ( Men, Women, Children).
Their “scholars” forgot (avoid) to say that Arabia was divided into two parts :
– The North with “white” nomadic people from the East.
– The South with the oldest Arabians who came from Africa.
It’s not a surprise for us when we see the scientific achievement of antic South Arabia and the “desert” civilization which prevailed on the North.
Arabia Felix was briliant like her sisters : Kemet, Chaldea, Babylonia , Ethiopia, Soudan etc
Even at the time of the Prophet Mohamed (saw), the people of North Arabia was called the Umiyyin , the illiterated ones…It is their name in the Quran Al Karim and in Torah.
But these people don’t read their Holy Book and hate black people.
In the oldest Arab Traditions gathered by the French scholar Caussin de Perceval the first inhabitants of South Arabia : Yemen, Hadramaut, Mahrah, Oman were the black Adites.
Their language were the same, which was spoken by the black koushites of Chaldea or Babylone, namely the Sumerians.
He says that the originals Canaanites (1st Amaliqas) were black people from South Arabia.
There were also the 2nd Amaliqas who were a mixed people between the semites ( ARAM) and the cushites ( LUD).
He divides the Amaliqas in 3 Families :
– Pure Amaliqas
– Arcam
– Qaturah
The last one is mixed between white semites and black arabians. Madian is a group of the Amalicas from Qaturah.
Tsiporah or Sephorah the black Ethiopian wife of Moses (as) was from the tribe of Madian,like the prophet of God Shuayb (as).
They did the same thing with the sumerians , I found a document from the French anthropoly society dating from 1902.
It has been written by Dr Adolphe BLOCH , he says many important things that we afro-descendants know :
– The Black Kushites of Chaldea and Babylone created the sumerian civilization;
– There were Black people in this region and they called themselves : ADAMU (Cuneiform writing);
– There were White people in this region and they were called : SARKU (Cuneiform writing);
– The Blacks of Babylonia ( ADAMU) created the writing system, the arts, and they educated the semites in this region;
– The bulk of slaves in Babylonia were WHITE people, and they were called according to their fair skin complexion by the word : NAMRUTIM ie ” people with fair complexion”.
They were bought from the land of GUTI ( Actual LURISTAN in IRAN), they were white ( ie whiter than semite people) and contracts were settled in order to buy these white slaves.
– Greeks called the Ethiopians, CEPHENES or KEPHENES. Hellanicus ( 5 th, BC) saw Ethiopians in Mesopotamia ( Inferior Region of Tigris / Euphrate)
– The Black Kushites descendants have been described by the Arab ABU-ZEID ( 8-9 th century AD) and the Persian ISTACHRI (10 th , AD)
– The Kushites from Arabia settled in Chaldea, Susiana , Phenicia , Palestine
I had the chance to see a recent picture of these originals black canaanites in a conference in Paris.
An African Scholar ( PHD in Egyptology/History/ Philosophy) , namely Pr Jean Charles Coovi-Gomez, showed us the document from a French newspaper, which said that they were the originals inhabitants of Palestine which is occupied by the Zionist state.
This picture SHOWED a black ebony man with Ethiopian features. They live in Jordania. And only a little more than one hundred people had survived.
I’ll post you the video of the conference, it’s in French but at least you’ll see the picture. I’ll translate for you the comment given by the French newspaper about this people.
But it was saying that they WERE the originals BEDOUINS of Palestine before the actual “arabs” of Palestine and their Zionist Askhenazi oppressors…
He showed us also an original picture of the so – called Semitic deity, the canaanite deity named BAAL. It was a black deity as well, like Osiris ( Wsr) , and Isis ( Ast).
PEACE
Come back soon , If God wills
http://video.kemmiou.com/view/1851/Coovi-Gomez-RexMiRa-Relations-entre-les-noirs-et-les-juifs-2-3:
– From 0:55 to 1:25 , the Black Canaanite deity BAAL – AMON, with an Egyptian posture.
– From 18:26 : The Black Canaanites descendants of the Natufians and From 19:05 he reads the text :
” Voici la figure des premiers Bédouins autochtones et indigènes de la Palestine…La représentation des premiers pionniers juifs de la bible ne ressemble pas à celle des autres”
” This is the representation of the first autochthonous and natives Bedouins of Palestine…This representation of the first jews (inhabitants of Palestine) pionneers of the Bible ( the canaanites) doesn’t look like to the others “….
He further says that more than 400 descendants of the first canaanites are now living in Jordania….
Truth is sweeeeeeetttttttttttttttttttttttt……
PS : This picture is a living witness of the ethnicity of the Phenicians
Hi all, I think we need to stop confuising and propogating the myth that the term Cush was meant to differentiate the African Arabs from other types of Arabs. The early Rabbis of Israel even referred to Shem as “black” . Originally Ham and Shem and Japhet referred to Afro-Arabians, and the myth of these three was an African Arabian allegory. There is no evidence that northern Arabians were fair in color. As the the Hejaz is even today are dark brown. The Ka’b, Muntafiq, Uqayl groups who left Central Arabia immigrating to Iraq from the 9thc. onwards are described as near black in color, and are considered to have been spread to Mesopotamia since remote times. The people of the south are the descedants of Shem,, Aram and Joktan/Qahtan, Thamud is called a son of Abir or Eber in Arabian tradition. Eber Joktan and Aram are not from Cush. This term came to refer to black people in general because of the presence of the Ghassan or Azd Sanuah a Himyarite people in Syria. Who are in various Arabic texts mentioned as ” black”. please do not keep the mythology alive that the Arab- speakers of today as represented in Western media are the Arabs of yesteryear. Osama bin Samit was black because he belonged to the Khazras group who were also derived from the Azd. The individuals like Omayya were black because the Banu Kenani or from whom came the Biblical Canaanites were “black” as are told in various texts of Iranians and Europeans. The Madhij leader mentioned in Berry’s book said a fair-skinned Arab was unthinkable in the 7th c., not because he was cushitic, but because he was from the tribes of Shem.
Apparently in the Pirqe of Rabbi Eliazar of Israel of the 1-2nd century, in Pereq 24, “Shem was especially blessed black and beautiful, Ham was blessed black like a raven…”
There are absolutely no texts speaking of fair skin “children of Shem” previous to the Greek interpretations of the Bible and later Iranian mercenary interpretations of the Noah myth.
I meant to say there are many Hejazi’s in northwest Arabia that are still dark brown in color. (Not all, of course.) They are the remnants of ancient slave trading people Sulaym, Ghatafan, Khazraj, Aus, Haram bin Samal, Hawazin etc, whose concubines came from the Rum as Jahiz said and later from Syria and as far north s the Caucasus.They were likely a people who are probably much blacker than they are now judging from the early descriptions..