Black Excellence and the Curse of Ham: Debating Race and Slavery in the Islamic Tradition

Bashir, Haroon

doi:10.13169/reorient.5.1.0092

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ReOrient

Volume 5, Issue 1

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Black Excellence and the Curse of Ham: Debating Race and Slavery in the Islamic Tradition

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Author(s): Haroon Bashir

Publication date (Print): 1 October 2019

Journal: ReOrient

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: Islam, race, slavery, racism, Blackness, Black Excellence, curse of Ham, critical Muslim studies

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Abstract

The Curse of Ham narrative claims that Ham (the son of Noah) and his progeny were cursed by God with “blackness and slavery.” While the story can be located within Islamic literature, the tradition was refuted by numerous scholars for various reasons. Firstly, the story is not found within the Quranic text. Secondly, it was generally accepted that slavery was not linked to color but was a substitute for execution following defeat in warfare. Most importantly, scholars refuted the idea that blackness could be considered a curse due to a number of early Muslim heroes being described as black. This paper explores the debates and discourses surrounding blackness and the story of Ham.

Content

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.2307/j50009694

Journal ID (jcode): reorient

Title: ReOrient

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN: 2055-5601

ISSN: 2055-561X

Publication date (Print): 1 October 2019

Volume: 5

Issue: 1 ( doiID: 10.13169/reorient.5.issue-1 )

Pages: 92-116

Affiliations

Markfield Institute of Higher Education, UK

Article

Publisher ID: reorient.5.1.0092

DOI: 10.13169/reorient.5.1.0092

SO-VID: 858b7d37-d2ef-4899-8f97-71e5f3e551d7

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Literary studies,Religious studies & Theology,Social & Behavioral Sciences,History,Philosophy

Keywords: slavery,curse of Ham,Black Excellence,Blackness,racism,race,Islam,critical Muslim studies

References

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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Abu-Zaid, N. (2003) The Dilemma of the Literary Approach to the Qur'an. Alif: Journal of Comparative Poets. 23, 8-47.

[2] Afsaruddin, A. (2007) The First Muslims. Oxford: Oneworld.

[3] Akande, H. (2012) Illuminating the Darkness: Blacks and North Africans in Islam. London: Ta-Ha Publishers.

[4] Akande, H. (2015) Illuminating the Difference: Black, White, and Brown Women. London: Rabaah Publishers.

[5] Akande, H. (2016) Illuminating the Blackness: Blacks and African Muslims in Brazil. London: Rabaah Publishers.

[6] Al-Athīr. (1987) Al-Kāmil fī al-Tārīkh. Edited by Al-Qādī, A. 11 vols. Beirut: Dar ul-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah.

[7] Alawiye, I. H. (1985) Ibn al-Jawzī‘s Apologia on Behalf of the Black People and Their Status in Islam: A Critical Edition and Translation of Kitab Tanwir al-Ghabash fi Fadl ‘l-Sūdān wa'l-Habash. PhD: University of London.

[8] Al-Baghdādī. (2001) Tārīkh Madīnat al-Salām. 16 volumes. Edited by Ma'rouf, B. Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami.

[9] Al-Bukhārī. (2013) Al-Ṭirāz al-Manqūsh fī Maḥāsin al-Ḥubūsh. Edited by Al-Ghazali, A. M. Kuwait: Maktabat Afaq.

[10] Al-Jāḥiẓ. (1979) Rasā'il al-Jāḥiẓ. Edited by Haroon A-S. 4 volumes. Cairo: Maktabat al-Khanji.

[11] Al-Khathlan, S. H. (1983) A Critical Edition of Kitab Raf' Shan al-Hubshan by Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti. PhD: University of St. Andrews.

[12] Al-Kisā‘ī. (1922) Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyā‘. Edited by Eisenberg, I. Leiden: Brill.

[13] Al-Masʿūdī. (1938) Akhbār al-Zamān. Cairo: Abdul Hāmid Ahmad Hanafi.

[14] Al-Masʿūdī. (1973) Murūj al-Dhahab wa Ma'ādin al-Jawāhir. Edited by Hamid, M. H. Beirut: Dar al-Fikr.

[15] Al-Munāwī. (1972) Fayd ul-Qaḍīr Sharḥ al-Jāmi' al-Sagīr. Beirut: Dar al-Marifa.

[16] Al-Musawi, M. (2015) The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

[17] Al-Qudūrī. (2010) The Mukhtaṣar of al-Qudūrī: A Manual of Islamic Law According to the Ḥanafī School. Translated by Kiani, T. M. London: TaHa Publishers.

[18] Al-Qurṭubī. (1995) Al-Jāmi' li-Aḥkām al-Qur'ān. 24 volumes. Beirut: al-Risalah Publishers.

[19] Al-Rāzī. (1995) Mafāṭīḥ al-Ghayb. 32 volumes. Beirut: Dar al-Fikr.

[20] Al-Suyūṭī. (1991) Kitāb Raf' Sha'n al-Ḥubshān. Cairo: al-Azhar.

[21] Al-Ṭabarī. (1989) The History of al-Ṭabarī (Ta'rīkh al-Rusul wa'l-Mulūk). Translated by Brinner, W. 40 volumes. Albany: State University of New York Press.

[22] Al-Timbuktī, A. B. (2000) Mi'raj al-Su'ud. Translated by Harrack, F. and Hunwick, J. Rabat: Mohamed V University.

[23] Al-Ya'qūbi. (1969) Tārīkh al-Ya'qūbī. 2 volumes. Leiden: Brill.

[24] Bacharach, J. L. (1984) African Military Slaves in the Medieval Middle East: The Cases of Iraq (869-955) and Egypt (868-1171). International Journal of Middle East Studies. 13 (4), 471-95.

[25] Bashir, I. B. (1992) Nasha't al-Dirasat al-Ifriqiyyah. Dirasat Ifriqiyyah. 10, 63-82.

[26] Bergma, J. S. and Hahn, S. W. (2005) Noah's Nakedness and the Curse on Canaan. Journal of Biblical Literature. 124 (1), 25-40.

[27] Clarence-Smith, W. (2006) Islam and the Abolition of Slavery. London: Hurst & Company.

[28] Colville, J. (2002) Sobriety and Mirth: A Selection of the Shorter Writings of al-Jāḥiẓ. London: Kegan Paul.

[29] Crone, P. (1980) Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[30] Davis, D. (2006) Inhuman Bondage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[31] Davis, D. (1984) Slavery and Human Progress. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[32] El-Hamel, C. (2013) Black Morocco: A History of Slavery, Race and Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[33] Ensel, R. (1999) Saints and Servants in Southern Morocco. Leiden: Brill.

[34] Escalante, A. (2019) The Long Arc of Islamophobia: African Slavery, Islam and the Caribbean World. Journal of Africana Religions. 7 (1), 179-86.

[35] Firestone, R. (2007) Early Islamic Exegesis on the So-Called “Hamitic Myth.” In Tzvi Langermann, Y. and Stern, J. (eds.). Adaptations and Innovations: Studies on the Interaction between Jewish and Islamic Thought and Literature from the Early Middle Ages to the Late Twentieth Century, Dedicated to Professor Joel L. Kraemer. Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 51-68.

[36] Fredrickson, G. M. (2002) Racism: A Short History. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

[37] Genesis 9:20-25 New International Version. Available from: www.bible.com/bible/111/GEN.9.20-25. NIV (accessed 13 February 2019).

[38] Goldenberg, D. M. (1997) The Curse of Ham: A Case of Rabbinic Racism? In Salzman, J. and West, C. (eds.). Struggles in the Promised Land. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 21-52.

[39] Goldenberg, D. M. (2003) The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

[40] Goldziher, I. (1967) Muslim Studies. Edited by Stern, M. London: George Allen & Unwin.

[41] Gubara, D. E. M. (2018) Revisiting Race and Slavery through ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti's ‘Aja'ib al-Athar. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. 38 (2), 230-45.

[42] Hall, B. (2011) A History of Race in Muslim West Africa, 1600–1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[43] Hassan, F. A. (2018) A Black African Muslim Perspective on Black Panther. Medium. Available from: medium.com/@faizaahassan/a-black-african-perspective-on-black-panther-da5da2c24f09 (accessed 15 September 2019).

[44] Hefter, T. (2014) The Reader in Al-Jāḥiẓ: the Epistolary Rhetoric of an Arabic Prose Master. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

[45] Heng, G. (2018) The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[46] Ibn Kathīr. (1988) Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyā' . Edited by Abdul Wahid, M. Mecca: Maktaba al-Talib Al-Jami'i.

[47] Ibn Khaldūn. (2005) The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. Translated by Rosenthal, F. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

[48] Ibn Taymiyyah. (1998) Majmū‘ al-Fatāwā. 37 volumes. Al-Mansura: Dar al-Wafa’ lil-Taba'a wa al-Nashr.

[49] Isaac, B., Ziegler, J. and Eliav-Feldon, M. (2009) Introduction. In Eliav-Feldon, M., Isaac, B. and Ziegler, J. (eds.). The Origins of Racism in the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-31.

[50] Jackson, S. A. (2005) Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking toward the Third Resurrection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[51] Jordan, W. D. (2014) Historical Origins of the One-Drop Racial Rule in the United States. Journal of Critical Mixed-Race Studies. 1 (1), 98-132.

[52] Junne, G. (2016) Black Eunuchs of the Ottoman Empire: Networks of Power in the Court of the Sultan. London: I.B. Tauris.

[53] Kane, O. O. (2016) Beyond Timbuktu: An Intellectual History of Muslim West Africa. London: Harvard University Press.

[54] Levtzion, N. (1963) The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century Kings of Mali. The Journal of African History. 4, 341–53.

[55] Lewis, B. (1971) Race and Color in Islam. London: Harper Torchbooks.

[56] Lewis, B. (1990) Race and Slavery in the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[57] Mamdani, M. (2018) Introduction: Trans-African Slaveries Thinking Historically. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. 38 (2), 185–210.

[58] Muhammad, A. (1985) The Image of Africans in Arabic Literature: Some Unpublished Manuscripts. In Ralph Willis, J. (eds.). Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa: Volume 1 Islam and the Ideology of Enslavement. London: Frank Cass, 47–76.

[59] Patterson, O. (1982) Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

[60] Sahih Muslim, Book. 4, Tradition. 1058. Available from: https://sunnah.com/muslim/5/3 (accessed 12 September 2018).

[61] Sayyid, S. (2013) Empire, Islam and the Postcolonial. In Huggan, G. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 127–41.

[62] Segal, R. (2002) Islam's Black Slaves: A History of Africa's Other Black Diaspora. London: Atlantic Books.

[63] Sheikh, A. (1998) Islam: Arab Imperialism. Cardiff: Principality.

[64] Shohat, E. (2018) On Orientalist Genealogies: The Split Arab/Jew Figure Revisited. In Ball, A. and Mattar, K. (eds.). The Edinburgh Companion to the Postcolonial Middle East. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 118–59.

[65] Sweet, J. H. (1997) The Iberian Roots of American Racist Thought. The William and Mary Quarterly. 54 (1), 143–66.

[66] Talhami, G. H. (1977) The Zanj Rebellion Reconsidered. The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 10 (3), 443–61.

[67] Tezcan, B. (2007) Dispelling the Darkness: The Politics of “Race” in the Early Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Empire in the Light of the Life and Work of Mulla Ali. In Tezcan, B. and Barbir, K. (eds.). Identity and Identity Formation in the Ottoman World: A Volume of Essays in Honor of Norman Itzkowitz. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 73–95.

[68] Urban, E. (2012) The Early Islamic Mawali: A Window onto Processes of Identity Construction and Social Change. PhD: University of Chicago.

[69] Webb, P. (2016) Imagining the Arabs: Arab Identity and the Rise of Islam. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.