10 Facts That Clear Up Confusion Around What Exactly Is an Arab

[GetInTheTruck]

That's pretty low of them or some of them as many arabs were intermixing with africans..plus when The Prophet came and changed things around with calling everyone under the banner of Al-Islam as brothers/sisters..plus his last sermon and also marrying his daughter with former a slave and having kids etc.

All that brother/sister shyt only went up to a certain point though. There is no way a non-Arab muslim would have been accepted as Caliph by any of the Sahaba.

 

[Poitier]

Also, there are many different conventions for differentiating the different continental plates. Some of which would separate the Somalia plate from the African plate.

There's actually a number of proposed places for the Afro-Asiatic Urheimat(origin). One popular theory is of a Levant origin. So, we can't just auto-matically presume that the original Afro-Asiatic tongue came from Africa into Asia, when it could've very well came from Asia into Africa.

This doesn't say anything about the original Arabs, though, who's language has much more in common with other Central Semetic languages such as Hebrew and Aramaic.

the original Arabs who's linguistic origins lie in the Syrian desert in Northern Arabia, and most likely were closely related to other people in the fertile cresent such as early Hebrew and Aramaic speaking people, I mean unless you're going to try and say they were all black, as well.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

And keep in mind there are just about as many even earlier sources that distinguish "black people" from the norm of arab society or even describe themselves as "white" in from primeval arab literature.

We mostly see this in later periods. Again keyword mostly. And I am aware that there are sources of such, but the fact I am trying to make is that there is an argument and should not not be dismissed as just "Afrocentric". There are many sources that say Arabs are phenotypically similar to Africans. Not only that but you have a time when Arabs looked up to their blackness and looked at paler skin people as "inferior".

What he (Fadl ibn al Abas) meant by: I am the green one; is the dark one, the black one. The Arabs used to take pride in their darkness and blackness and they had a distaste for a light complexion and they used to say that a light complexion was the complexion of the non-Arabs.

https://sites.google.com/site/historyofeastafrica/mubarrad-1

Thus I think it's a mistake to assert with certainty that the original Arabs were black in the wake of all the opposing evidence while only taking inspiration from that which helps to confirm the already held assumptions.

And I in my opinion think its a mistake to this throw away the argument as just Afrocentric.

There's actually a number of proposed places for the Afro-Asiatic Urheimat(origin). One popular theory is of a Levant origin. So, we can't just auto-matically presume that the original Afro-Asiatic tongue came from Africa into Asia, when it could've very well came from Asia into Africa. There's no general consensus on this.

Aye Supper... You're venturing into Eurocentric territory. No one serious linguistic takes the Urheimat theory of Afro-Asiatic seriously. If I remember correctly the theory is "endangered". Most mainstream linguistic hints to AA coming from Ethiopia or Egypt/Sudan. We know the origins of AA lies in Africa due to most of the branches being in Africa and just one outside of Africa. That's how linguistics tell the origins.
Africa: Cushytic - Semitic - Chadic - Berber - Omotic - Egyptian(extinct)
Asia: Semitic
Ethiopian origin for ''Afro-Asiatic language family''

''On the other hand, the finding of all major branches of the Afro-Asiatic language tree in Ethiopia, including those that are not spoken elsewhere in the world, suggests that the homeland of the Afro-Asiatic language family may have been somewhere close to southwestern Ethiopia (Ehret 1995).''

Source(''Introduction'' 3rd paragraph > 2nd sentence):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182106/#SC1title
Linguistic Evidence supporting East African/Horn of African origin for Afro-Asiatic languages:

‘’Linguistic evidence indicates that the Afroasiatic language family originated in the Horn of Africa (S62, S70, S87), consistent with high levels of the Afroasiatic AAC in the Beja populations (although the latter observation could also be due to reverse gene flow from the Middle East).’’

Source (page: 15, title: Origins of the Fulani, Baggara Arabs, Koma, and Beja second sentence):
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2009/04/30/1172257.DC1/Tishkoff.SOM.pdf
Horn of Africa origin for Afro-Asiatic language family:

‘’Proto-Afro-Asiatic is proposed to have been spoken 18,000 years ago near the Horn of Africa (eastern Africa). Three dialects emerged (Omotic, Cushytic, and Chadic) from the main one and this left ?Boreafrasian,? the source of Berber, Egyptian and Semitic (Dalby ,p. 6). The speakers of ?Boreafrasian? migrated north to an arid Sahara climate, then eventually pushed on west and east. Omotic, Cushytic, and Chadic are also spoken north of the Sahara so it must be assumed that the speakers of these "dialects" migrated north likewise, though perhaps separately from the ?Boreafrasian? speakers (Dalby, p.6).‘’

Source (title ‘’Origins, Migrations, and Language Contacts‘’ > 1st paragraph):
http://linguistics.byu.edu/classes/ling450ch/reports/afro-asiatic2.html

There's more if need be. Not only that, but the AA language expansion from Africa to the Near East correlates with Y-DNA lineages from East Africa going into the Near East.

Now, if you want to have a conversation about whether or not there are natives of the Arabian peninsula are black skinned and probably descended from black-skinned ancestors, there's a lot more merit in favor of that notion, in my opinion based on the available evidence. Thus, one of the imperative things to do in this discussion would be to make the distinction between "Arabs" & "Arabians", because the two are not interchangeable, as not all Arabs are Arabians and not all Arabians are Arabs.

Indeed. Which was my point. Especially with the bolded.

Especially when you're speaking about the natives of Southern Arabia ie the people who speak Modern Southern Arabian languages, which are apart of the Southern Semetic language group, of which Arabic is not apart of. Arabic is apart of the Central Semetic language family, who origins lie in the Northern and Central part of the Arabian peninsula, and later spread south to the Southern part of the peninsula. So, if you're going to talk about the origins of Arabs who are by most definitions denoted by their native tongue being Arabic, then it's best to talk about them in the context of their lingustic origins in Northern & Central Arabia, not Southern Arabia. In the Qu'ran there's even mention of native Southern Arabian groups like the Sabeans.

As, you can see from this lingustic map, the origins of both classical Arabic & Ancient North Arabic(sometimes called Ancient North Arabian) are outside of the tropical zone and geographically above the tropic of cancer, thus in the temperate zone. So no, the genesis of the Arabs would've not happened under "adaptation to a tropical climate".

And this is why the concept of Arab is tricky.
But... The Temperate zone is right on the bridge of the Tropical zone. Its right near it. Just like South Africa's temperate is near the tropical. The Southern African Khoisan live in the temperate zone, yet they are tropically adapted. The Ancient Egyptians/Nubians too lived in the temperate zone, and yet many anthropologist lists them as tropically adapted. You also forget back and forth migartions throughout the Penisula. Arabic is not that much outside the tropical zone. And more importantly Ancient North Arabian is actually younger than Arabic... The name "ancient" in it is a misnoner.

The ancient languages in the southwest of the Peninsula are known as Ancient (or Old) South Arabian (see Ch. 15), while those in central and northern Arabia and in the desert of southern Syria are classed as North Arabian. This latter category is divided into two subgroups. The first of these is Arabic, which is subdivided into (i) Old Arabic (that is Arabic attested in pre-Islamic texts which have survived independently of the early Arab grammarians, thus the Namarah inscription but not the “Pre-Islamic poetry,” see Macdonald, forthcoming); ¯ (ii) Classical and Middle Arabic; and (iii) the vernacular dialects. The second subgroup is called Ancient North Arabian. The most striking difference between the two subgroups lies in the definite article, which is al- in Arabic, but is h- or zero in Ancient North Arabian (see §4.3.1). Until recently, this division was largely unrecognized by linguists working outside the field, and Ancient North Arabian (which was sometimes misleadingly called “ProtoArabic”) was usually treated as a collection of early dialects of Arabic. However, it is now clear that Ancient North Arabian represents a linguistic strain which, while closely related to Arabic, was distinct from it(Macdonald 2000:29–30).

http://krc2.orient.ox.ac.uk/aalc/images/documents/mcam/mcam_ancient_north_arabian.pdf
And also Arabic being south or central is still being debated.

It's also worthy to note that the geographical origins of the Ancient North Arabic(the progenitor to Classical Arabic) is actually further in physical distance from the both the Old & Modern Southern Arabian languages would be, which would include the Mehri or Mahra speaking people, which you've shown in a couple of photos, from the Ethiopian Semitic languages. And not only that but the Southern Arabian languages are more linguistically related to the Ethiopian Semitic languages than they are to Arabic. So, no I don't think it would be a stretch to say that the original Southern Arabian people were probably pretty closely related to people in the Horn of Africa. This doesn't say anything about the original Arabs, though, who's language has much more in common with other Central Semetic languages such as Hebrew and Aramaic. The Arabic writing system is even derived from that of the Aramaized Nabataean script, not the Old Southern Arabian script: But the Ethiopian Ge'ez script is!

Ist commonly known Hesbashas got their writing script from southern Arabia. Nothing new. But again Ancient North Arabic does not predate classical Arabic. The name "ancient" is a misnomer.
Mind you(I could be wrong) old south Arabic is much older than Arabic and way older than Ancient North Arabic. And more importantly(again I could be wrong), remember that the people of Arabia(Arabs too) spoke a language prior to Arabic. And some hint to old southern Arabian and even Nilo-Saharan!

 

[Bawon Samedi]

"There is no real doubt that the ancestors of both epigraphic (ESA) and modernn South Arabian (MSA) were languages spoken in the Near East rather than Ethiopia. But the date and processes whereby the speakers of these languages migrated and diversified are unknown. Apart from inscriptions that can be read, some contain evidence for completely unknown languages co-existing with ESA. Beeston (1981: 181) cites an inscription from Marib which begins in Sabaean but then switches to an unknown language. He mentions several other texts which have similar morphology (a final –k suffix) and which may represent an unknown non-Semitic language (or possibly a Nilo-Saharan language such as Kunama, for which such a feature would be typical)."

Source:
http://www.academia.edu/2326496/The...f_its_Reflection_in_the_Archaeological_Record
Natufians anyone? Not only that, but the earliest cattle culture in Arabia is known as the Circum-Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex or CANPC dubbed by archaeologist Jaris Yurins. Some scholars claim the ancestors of the CANPC to be the Harifians who settled northwest Arabia from Egypt during the Mesolithic. Like I said back and forth migration.
So one should question how non-tropically adapted those who spoke early central Arabic were?

So, I have no problem considering the fact that the original Southern Arabians, in particular were probably very dark skinned, similar to people in the Horn of Africa. But, I just don't see how you could say that about the original Arabs who's linguistic origins lie in the Syrian desert in Northern Arabia, and most likely were closely related to other people in the fertile cresent such as early Hebrew and Aramaic speaking people, I mean unless you're going to try and say they were all black, as well.

The bolded is incorrect as pointed out.

And yes indeed arguing whether Arabians(not Arabs) were black or not is a tricky argument.

But, Tippu Tip himself was not an Arab ethnically, but a Swahili, who are bantu speaking people who have historic ties with Arabs, as well as Persians and Somalis. So, it's no surprise that Tippu Tip, a black skinned African swahili, wouldn't appear all that physically different from other black skinned African people. The point is though, he was not an Arab, though probably sold African slaves to Arabs.

The source hints to other Arabs besides Tippi Tip. But anyways here's another source saying the samething...
M.C. Zilfi says in Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire (2010):"Discrimination based on color was not unknown in these regions, but in many respects, black Africans seem not to have been worse off than free Arabs from the less pedigreed tribes. In any case, many free Arab tribesmen of long lineage were phenotypically indistinguishable from black Africans."
Recall, Al-Jahiz: "Our blackness, O people of the Zanj, is not different from the blackness of the Banu Sulaym and other Arab tribes we have mentioned."

Like I said before. Al-Jahiz of Basra himself, had an black skinned enslaved African grandfather. Basra was were the Zanj Rebellion took place, and still to this day has a significant Afro-Iraqi population

There is hardly any historical evidence that he had an African/Zanj grandfather. Nada. His grandfather being Zanj is just a way to explain away his blackness. It is actually stated that he is of the Banu Kinanah tribe, which is one of the largest. But more importantly Arabs are patrilineal so there's no way his grandfather couldn't be arab unless he lied which is highly doubtful and pure guess work. African from his mother's side is more likely, but again only speculation.
Not only that, but in his book he makes it known that he is not Zanj/African, by the way he interviews the Zanj.

But, with that said how can you pick out quotes like by him and ignore these quotes by him?

We know that the Zanj (blacks) are the least intelligent and the least discerning of mankind, and the least capable of understanding the consequences of actions

Like the crow among mankind are the Zanj for they are the worst of men and the most vicious of creatures in character and temperament.
http://www.colorq.org/Articles/article.aspx?d=2002&x=arabviews

^^^^He clearly was referring to Africans or Afro-Arabs when he spoke of "the Zanj".

Not only are those two quotes contradict hin being African/Zanj, but you posted them out of context. They most likely reflect a time during the Zanj rebellion or when the Zanj were commonly slaves. Al Jahiz was just siding with his people, but more importantly the degrading quotes are only in reference to the Zanj, NOT all blacks. Some scholars have foolishly translated Zanj in the text as to mean all blacks. If we were to replace the greco-roman terms for goth or vandal with "white" then we might conclude the greeks and romans were racist against whites.
Al Jahiz mentioned all groups he considered to be apart of the black "race" as stated here:

"The blacks are more numerous than the whites. The whites at most consist of the people of Persia, Jibal, and Khurasan, the Greeks, Slavs, Franks, and Avars, and some few others, not very numerous; the blacks include the Zanj, Ethiopians, the people of Fazzan, the Berbers, the Copts, and Nubians, the people of Zaghawa, Moors..."

- The Boast of the Blacks against the Whites
Clearly these other "blacks" were NOT apart of the degrading.
But I think its fair that we don't forget these texts on how he felt about the Zanj.

Everybody agrees that there is no people on earth in whom generosity is as universally well developed as the Zanj. These people have a natural talent for dancing to the rhythm of the tambourine, without needing to learn it. There are no better singers anywhere in the world, no people more polished and eloquent, and no people less given to insulting language. No other nation can surpass them in bodily strength and physical toughness. One of them will lift huge blocks and carry heavy loads that would be beyond the strength of most Bedouins or members of other races. They are courageous, energetic, and generous, which are the virtues of nobility, and also good-tempered and with little propensity to evil. They are always cheerful, smiling, and devoid of malice, which is a sign of noble character.

Goes back to my point that the two texts you posted were most likely due to the result of the Zanj rebellion where the Zanj were antagonized. Speculation, but it connects the dots.
And then you have this...

The Zanj say that God did not make them black in order to disfigure them; rather it is their environment that made them so. The best evidence of this is that there are black tribes among the Arabs, such as the Banu Sulaim bin Mansur, and that all the peoples settled in the Harra, besides the Banu Sulaim are black. These tribes take slaves from among the Ashban to mind their flocks and for irrigation work, manual labor, and domestic service, and their wives from among the Byzantines; and yet it takes less than three generations for the Harra to give them all the complexion of the Banu Sulaim. This Harra is such that the gazelles, ostriches, insects, wolves, foxes, sheep, asses, horses and birds that live there are all black. White and black are the results of environment, the natural properties of water and soil, distance from the sun, and intensity of heat. There is no question of metamorphosis, or of punishment, disfigurement or favor meted out by Allah. Besides, the land of the Banu Sulaim has much in common with the land of the Turks, where the camels, beasts of burden, and everything belonging to these people is similar in appearance: everything of theirs has a Turkish look.

And also what about the earliest tales collected in what are considered the most authentic saheeh hadith collections before the expansion of islam under the first four Rashidun Caliphs giving a physical description of the prophet muhammad himself as a white skinned man? Are we just suppose to pretend these don't exist?

I said to Abu Tufail: Did you see Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)? He said: Yes, he had a white handsome face. Muslim b. Hajjaj said: Abu Tufail who died in 100 Hijra was the last of the Companions of Allah's Messenger (ﷺ). - Sahih Muslim

And we also can't pretend these don't exist... Which are also early.
Al-Tirmidhī (d. 279/892) in his Jami’ al-Ṣāḥīḥ reports on the authority of the famous Companion of the Prophet, Anas b. Malik:

• • “The Messenger of Allah was of medium stature, neither tall nor short, [with] a beautiful, dark brown-complexioned body (ḥasan al-jism asmar al-lawn). His hair was neither curly nor completely straight and when he walked he leant forward.” (VI:69 no. 1754)

[According to Ibn Athīr, al-sumra’s ‘blackness’ predominates over its ‘whiteness’ (al-sumra alladhī yaghlibu sawāduhu alā bayādihi), and al-Taftāzānī (d. 792/1390) reports in his al-Tahdhīd:

• • ‘al-sumra…is a color inclining to a faint blackness (sawadin khafiyin), as in the description of the Prophet: he was brown complexioned (kāna asmar al-lawn)…”

Another Hadith from Ibn Majjah
Sometimes I remember the words of the poet when I was looking at the face of the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) on the pulpit. He did not come down until all the waterspouts in Al-Madinah were filled with rain. And I remember what the poet said: ‘He has a white complexion and rain is sought by virtue of his countenance, He cares for the orphans, and protects the widows, These are the words of Abu Talib. - Ibn Majjah

IIRC Ibn Majjan was not Arab, but Persian and came from a later date. I could be wrong.

Thanks anyway, for raising some great points despite the disagreement.

You welcome.

 

[kp404]

instead of replying with that simple notion, explain why and debunk his theory and understanding?

Don't you know? Racists and trolls can't debunk because they act off of illogical ideology and not facts

 

[okra]

Don't you know? Racists and trolls can't debunk because they act off of illogical ideology and not facts

youre an idiot.

 

[GetInTheTruck]

Did a quick check and both Britannica and wiki say there is no general consensus as to the urheimat of the Afro Asiatic languages, so @Supper was being as objective as one can be regarding the issue in his post. I think Asia is far fetched, somewhere in the fertile crescent would seem more plausible which is the majority view.

 

[Poitier]

Did a quick check and both Britannica and wiki

but no linguistics journal?

 

[Poitier]

We already know language went from Africa out based on syllable count. It would take a suspension of belief to think West Asians brought East Africans language.

 

[GetInTheTruck]

but no linguistics journal?

This is who wrote the Britannica article:

H. ekkehard wolff

Biographical Information
University Professor Emeritus, chairman of African Studies, Institute of African Studies, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Ger. Author of Referenz Grammatik des Hausa (A Grammar of the Lamang Language) and numerous journal articles

 

[Swagnificent]

Source:
http://www.academia.edu/2326496/The...f_its_Reflection_in_the_Archaeological_Record
Natufians anyone? Not only that, but the earliest cattle culture in Arabia is known as the Circum-Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex or CANPC dubbed by archaeologist Jaris Yurins. Some scholars claim the ancestors of the CANPC to be the Harifians who settled northwest Arabia from Egypt during the Mesolithic. Like I said back and forth migration.
So one should question how non-tropically adapted those who spoke early central Arabic were?

The bolded is incorrect as pointed out.

And yes indeed arguing whether Arabians(not Arabs) were black or not is a tricky argument.

The source hints to other Arabs besides Tippi Tip. But anyways here's another source saying the samething...
M.C. Zilfi says in Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire (2010):"Discrimination based on color was not unknown in these regions, but in many respects, black Africans seem not to have been worse off than free Arabs from the less pedigreed tribes. In any case, many free Arab tribesmen of long lineage were phenotypically indistinguishable from black Africans."
Recall, Al-Jahiz: "Our blackness, O people of the Zanj, is not different from the blackness of the Banu Sulaym and other Arab tribes we have mentioned."

There is hardly any historical evidence that he had an African/Zanj grandfather. Nada. His grandfather being Zanj is just a way to explain away his blackness. It is actually stated that he is of the Banu Kinanah tribe, which is one of the largest. But more importantly Arabs are patrilineal so there's no way his grandfather couldn't be arab unless he lied which is highly doubtful and pure guess work. African from his mother's side is more likely, but again only speculation.
Not only that, but in his book he makes it known that he is not Zanj/African, by the way he interviews the Zanj.

Not only are those two quotes contradict hin being African/Zanj, but you posted them out of context. They most likely reflect a time during the Zanj rebellion or when the Zanj were commonly slaves. Al Jahiz was just siding with his people, but more importantly the degrading quotes are only in reference to the Zanj, NOT all blacks. Some scholars have foolishly translated Zanj in the text as to mean all blacks. If we were to replace the greco-roman terms for goth or vandal with "white" then we might conclude the greeks and romans were racist against whites.
Al Jahiz mentioned all groups he considered to be apart of the black "race" as stated here:
- The Boast of the Blacks against the Whites
Clearly these other "blacks" were NOT apart of the degrading.
But I think its fair that we don't forget these texts on how he felt about the Zanj.


Goes back to my point that the two texts you posted were most likely due to the result of the Zanj rebellion where the Zanj were antagonized. Speculation, but it connects the dots.
And then you have this...




And we also can't pretend these don't exist... Which are also early.
Al-Tirmidhī (d. 279/892) in his Jami’ al-Ṣāḥīḥ reports on the authority of the famous Companion of the Prophet, Anas b. Malik:

• • “The Messenger of Allah was of medium stature, neither tall nor short, [with] a beautiful, dark brown-complexioned body (ḥasan al-jism asmar al-lawn). His hair was neither curly nor completely straight and when he walked he leant forward.” (VI:69 no. 1754)

[According to Ibn Athīr, al-sumra’s ‘blackness’ predominates over its ‘whiteness’ (al-sumra alladhī yaghlibu sawāduhu alā bayādihi), and al-Taftāzānī (d. 792/1390) reports in his al-Tahdhīd:

• • ‘al-sumra…is a color inclining to a faint blackness (sawadin khafiyin), as in the description of the Prophet: he was brown complexioned (kāna asmar al-lawn)…”

IIRC Ibn Majjan was not Arab, but Persian and came from a later date. I could be wrong.


You welcome.

great post. I'm glad you mentioned the fact that the word "Zanj" didn't refer to all black people in the ancient world but rather was the word describing just ONE TYPE. The problem alot of the c00ncs and cacs on here have is that they are applying MODERN notions of race to the ancient world. the arabs obviously didn't consider ethiopia or sudan the "zanj". that was a term for southeast africans. so the idea that the word zanj was a reference to all black people is pure fallacy.

it would be like me arguing that when the ancient greeks called the "germans" to the north of them dumb white blond barbarians, that they were talking about ALL white people in those comments and that they themselves could not be white since they were disparging a white race.

 

[Poitier]

This is who wrote the Britannica article:

H. ekkehard wolff

Biographical Information
University Professor Emeritus, chairman of African Studies, Institute of African Studies, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Ger. Author of Referenz Grammatik des Hausa (A Grammar of the Lamang Language) and numerous journal articles

Can you link the journals themselves.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Did a quick check and both Britannica and wiki say there is no general consensus as to the urheimat of the Afro Asiatic languages, so @Supper was being as objective as one can be regarding the issue in his post.

The thing is no one dismissed Supper as being non-Objective.

I think Asia is far fetched, somewhere in the fertile crescent would seem more plausible which is the majority view.

This is actually NOT the majority view...

 

[Swagnificent]

Did a quick check and both Britannica and wiki say there is no general consensus as to the urheimat of the Afro Asiatic languages, so @Supper was being as objective as one can be regarding the issue in his post. I think Asia is far fetched, somewhere in the fertile crescent would seem more plausible which is the majority view.

so lemme get this straight. all of the afro-asiatic languages reside SOLELY in Africa except for one. but simply because some semtic speakers are located outside of africa, you are willing to think its more plausible that ALL of the family originated outside of Africa?

thats some stretch armstrong shyt right there.

 

[Poitier]

so lemme get this straight. all of the afro-asiatic languages reside SOLELY in Africa except for one. but simply because some semtic speakers are located outside of africa, you are willing to think its more plausible that ALL of the family originated outside of Africa?

thats some stretch armstrong shyt right there.

Its the same people who claim West Asians came back and created Dynastic Egypt.