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This thread is going to proceed roughly chronologically re: topic discussed. It's a mix of (English only) primary sources in translation and secondary sources that you can use to teach students about literary dimensions of race and race-making in the Arabophone/Persophone world..
...A lot of these reps of blackness have become part of cultural hagiographies sited throughout the world today as part of the Q of whether Muslims struggle with anti-Blackness (many do, like everyone else). That's not what I'll discuss but I'll give some resources at the end!...
...First, 'Antara b. Shaddad, a half-Ethiopian half-Arab warrior poet from the pre-Islamic period. He is credited with a mu'allaqa, the highest lit. achievement one could make in his era. His poems are translated by James Montgomery w @LibraryArabLit: https://nyupress.org/9781479880904/ ...
...'Antara's tale spawned an epic counterpart, Sirat 'Antar (the epic of 'Antar) and his name became synonymous w heroism, a feature of Arabic literature that drew afrocentrist attention in the U.S. after Terrick Hamilton's 19th c translations of the text...
...here's Cedric Dover writing for Phylon, a journal founded by W.E.B. Du Bois, on 'Antar and his lack of warm welcome amongst the West's cadre of knightly, swashbuckling heroes of note:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/271905?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents...
https://www.jstor.org/stable/271905?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents...
...Arabist Harry Norris focuses on the Epic of 'Antar's emphasis not only on 'Antar's racial past, but on the Islamic world's racial presents. He's written on imaginings of Sub-Saharan Africa (the bilād al-sūdān in Arabic, literally "lands of the blacks"):
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25802579?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=futuh+al-bahnasa&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dfutuh%2Bal-bahnasa&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A88cd47fdd860661a5c4a931a68472dd1&seq=8#metadata_info_tab_contents
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25802579?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=futuh+al-bahnasa&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dfutuh%2Bal-bahnasa&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A88cd47fdd860661a5c4a931a68472dd1&seq=8#metadata_info_tab_contents
...and he translated the African expeditions in the text, reviewed here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-history/article/africa-in-arab-epic-the-adventures-of-antar-by-h-t-norris-warminster-wilts-aris-and-phillips-1980-approaches-to-arabic-literature-no-3-pp-x-254-12/B5CE24118CC54411F7BA65AAE1FBC3CB ...
... 'Antar isn't the only Black hero of an Arabic epic, but few studies analyze these heroes on racial terms. Susan Slyomovics writes on the birth of Abu Zayd al-Hilali, the unexpectedly black hero of the Epic of the Tribe of Hilal, viz. Egyptian folklore: https://brill.com/view/journals/jal/49/1-2/article-p50_3.xml?language=fr
...And then there's me, on 'Abd al-Wahhab, the (also unexpectedly) black hero of The Epic of the Princess Dhāt al-Himma, which I turned from an MA into an article: https://brill.com/view/journals/jal/48/3/article-p298_298.xml
...As a historical personality, 'Antara b. Shaddād got grouped among a cadre of poets with Black African mothers who were concubines to Arab fathers, called the aghribat al-'Arab ("crows of the Arabs"), w crow being a common epithet for someone with dark skin...
...These authors' work raised questions for many of whether there was a sustained Black shu'ubi movement (ethnically motivated prideful writing) similar to that of Persian authors whose ultra-high Sasanian status had been downgraded under an Arabizing empire...
...On this, perhaps one of the few good articles by Bernard Lewis (I know, I know, I really do):
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1343463?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
And if you read French or Arabic, much more has been said by Xavier Luffin and Abduh Badawi on this topic...
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1343463?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
And if you read French or Arabic, much more has been said by Xavier Luffin and Abduh Badawi on this topic...
...Boastful poems by the "crows" form a citational pillar of a partly-anthological, partly-essayist genre called munazarat (debates) on vindicating blackness. The most famous of these is al-Jahiz's "Boasts of the Blacks Over the Whites," trans. Tarif al-Khalidi (URL unavailable)
...al-Jahiz was thought by some to be moved to the topic due to his own ancestry. In his masterful book on al-Jahiz, Thomas Hefter raises this idea and calls it into question:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/reader-in-aljahiz/3636C2629A6685901689D5C3551C6573...
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/reader-in-aljahiz/3636C2629A6685901689D5C3551C6573...
...other munazarat followed, though with big gaps in time between those that are extant. One, by Ibn al-Jawzi (Illuminating the Darkness: On the Virtues of Sudanese and Ethiopians) has been translated by Imran Hamza Alawiye:
https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.340878...
https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.340878...
...Another, by al-Suyuti called "Raising the State of the Ethiopians," has also raised questions regarding its motivations. On how Suyuti historicizes the land of al-Habash (Abyssinia) and its people, see:
https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004334526/B9789004334526_009.xml ...
https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004334526/B9789004334526_009.xml ...
...But what of literary reps of Black religious figures, like Bilal and Luqman? The epistles discuss both, & there are also lesser-known or thought of instances of religious figures having African ancestry. On the heritage of shi'i imams, see Amina Inloes: https://www.academia.edu/10349890/Racial_Othering_in_Shi_i_Sacred_History_Jawn_ibn_Huwayy_the_African_Slave_and_the_Ethnicities_of_the_Twelve_Imams
...The supposed overlap of shu'ubi sentiment between Persian and African literati composing in Arabic also raises questions about how Black Africans are represented in Persian literature, on which Minoo Southgate writes incisively:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00210868408701620?journalCode=cist20...
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00210868408701620?journalCode=cist20...
...And who were "Black Africans" anyway? As Maghan Keita raises in his book, Race and the Writing of History, Westerners imagine Egypt as a non-Black building block of our civilization, like Greece/Rome. Did Arab authors? On Copts' racialization, see: https://www.academia.edu/13590848/The_Crinkly_Haired_People_of_the_Black_Earth_examining_Egyptian_identities_in_Ibn_Abd_al_Hakams_Futuh
...So far these sources are pre-/early-modern. I have used the following resources on Africa in travel writing and Africans as travel writers in classes. Ch. 1 of Eve Troutt Powell's A Diff Shade of Colonialism, on Egyptian-authored travelogues in Sudan: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520233171/a-different-shade-of-colonialism#table-of-contents
...And, bc not all travel is voluntary but that violence shouldn't preclude our ability to credit creative use of travel narrative, Omar b. Saeed's autobiographical, horrific riḥla into American slavery should be on your rlists, too, trans. Ala Alryyes:
https://www.amazon.com/Muslim-American-Slave-Wisconsin-Autobiography/dp/0299249549..
https://www.amazon.com/Muslim-American-Slave-Wisconsin-Autobiography/dp/0299249549..
...As a literary person I would be remiss not to include something on how to "read" visual representations of blackness in Persian, Indian, and Ottoman miniatures:
https://www.academia.edu/38023075/R_Hillenbrand_The_Image_of_the_Black_in_Islamic_Art_The_Case_of_Painting_in_The_Image_of_the_Black_in_African_and_Asian_Art_eds_D_Bindman_S_P_Blier_and_H_L_Gates_Cambridge_Mass_2017_215_53...
https://www.academia.edu/38023075/R_Hillenbrand_The_Image_of_the_Black_in_Islamic_Art_The_Case_of_Painting_in_The_Image_of_the_Black_in_African_and_Asian_Art_eds_D_Bindman_S_P_Blier_and_H_L_Gates_Cambridge_Mass_2017_215_53...
...And as a sideways reader, for those who've read heavy hitters like the Arabian Nights (Alf Layla wa-layla) and wondered about the symbolism of the "big, black 'ifrit," a piece on darkness and the world of the jinn, who are often rep'd as black:
https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004301368/B9789004301368_004.xml...
https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004301368/B9789004301368_004.xml...
...On a related note, Christian Lange explores how an expression about being black-faced that is common to several semitic languages figures in Islamic reps of hell, sometimes w very literal, epidermal implications among interpreters:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20297309?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents...
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20297309?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents...
...I'm nearly out of room. So, follow @SapeloSquare, @HauteHijab, and @MuslimARC to get the scoop on anti-racist work and contesting anti-Blackness in Muslim American communities today. If you wanna support me, don't. Donate to the Chicago bond fund: https://chicagobond.org
And all of this is my way of participating in #ScholarStrike. For more, you can find my bibliography of resources on race in the pre-modern MENA here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xowlyaB5c3kf2v0TkfzHi7h2crWeO-qZKW0HJ9E6QhA/edit
And all my work comes available as it gets published and I'm not exactly quiet about it...
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xowlyaB5c3kf2v0TkfzHi7h2crWeO-qZKW0HJ9E6QhA/edit
And all my work comes available as it gets published and I'm not exactly quiet about it...
...Some folks to watch for modern reps of blackness and Afro-Arab identity (both self-representational and external) in Arabic/Persian lit include @brownisthecolor, @beetasays, Parisa Vaziri and Eve Troutt Powell who aren't #onhere, and a billion more I'm forgetting I'm sorry.
*should also have said Afro-Persian but looool sometimes we can get up our own arses when it comes to specialization my bad.
Oh also grumble grumble I have feelings but here you go #medievaltwitter, most of these authors wrote between the 6th and 16th century so plz plz plz use them!
