A paler shade of black - Arab racism (rooted in Islamic heritage)

guardian ^ | March, 2008

[Righting]

Arabs.. racism.. it exists...

word 'abd - Arabic for "slave" - often used in our household... so common ..its negative connotations.. to anyone darker skin than themselves - from southern Sudanese house servants to migrants from Darfur- clear intent to demean.. addressing a particularly dark-skinned or thick-lipped child.

was a kind of racism that no one challenged, addressed,..through a child's eyes.. on a scale of colour, lighter was good, darker was bad. The word 'abd, although strictly meaning "slave" or "servant", became synonymous with negritude. my Islamic heritage reinforced this with quotes from Muhammad such as "You should listen to and obey your ruler even if he was an Ethiopian [ie black] slave whose head looks like a raisin" (Sahih Bukhari).

When we moved to E. Africa.. 'abd was seamlessly transferred to the locals whom we interacted only in their capacity as domestic staff , grounds-keepers at international schools. While I myself was "black" of North African descent, my family believed its Arab roots were somehow genetically dominant, giving us smaller features and a marginally lighter skin tone - deeming ourselves to be an entirely a different race from "pure" Africans.

Our next move was to Saudi Arabia, where the Arab ethnicity with which I identified so strongly was suddenly cast into doubt: now it was my turn to be the "slave". My belief that I was an Arab, racially superior to non-Arab Africans, became laughable in the heartland of Arabia - a place where "Arabness" was not only determined by skin colour but by whether you could uninterruptedly trace your lineage back to the founding father of your clan. In fact, ancestry is so important in Saudi Arabia that courts have the power to annul a marriage if gaps are later discovered in a person's lineage.. blood line pollution.

[Will88]

“The slaves transported to the Arab countries left almost none ! They were all worked to death.”

And the Arabs preferred that their male slaves be eunuchs. Any descendants of African slaves came mainly from harems and house servants, whom the master was legally entitled to use for sex.

And interesting link:

http://africanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa040201a.htm

Google “Islam Slavery” and you can learn all sorts of things from many links.

[twigs]

They may be racist but they’re not stupid. Obama represents their best chance of gaining control over our country and culture. They’re playing with him.

[arthurus]

the cult that murdered hundreds of millions of their ancestors

and will treat their descendants no better.

[hellbender]

Black Catholic reporter Gregory Kaine from Baltimore was so disgusted with Louis Farrakhan’s denial that Muslims still enslaved blacks that he went to Sudan and bought a slave or two, just to prove the point. This was in the 1980’s or ‘90s.

[Paleo Conservative]

The slaves transported to the Arab countries left almost none ! They were all worked to death.

Also, they were ususally castrated. This practice was explained in the book linked below.

http://www.amazon.com/Jihad-West-Muslim-Conquests-Centuries/dp/1573922471

[slowhandluke]

Historically, the lack of a modern institutionalised slavery system in the Arab world ...

I would think that a 'slave market' would meet the definition of an 'institution', and they were around in modern times.

Somehow, the fact that Arabs weren't picky about who they enslaved doesn't make it better in my eyes. Especially since they didn't stop, just stopped talking about it.

[CHEE]

word ‘abd - Arabic for “slave”
******************************************************************************************************************************************************

I was introduced to this while in Saudi Arabia in the early 80’s, I lived in Iran in the mid 70’s and did not notice any major racial problems. Religion and big noses (from an area near the Caspian sea) were problems. I admit that I obtained near zero proficiency in Arabic or Farsi (check out what the farsi word "kos" means.

[Cronos]

really?

[Cronos]

They make travesty of the fact that Muslim world was OPPRESSOR FOR 500 years, and oppressed by the West for less than 100.

you're wrong. The Moo's were oppressors of the Syrian, Egyptian, Yemeni, Irani, Chaldean, Anatolian, Armenian, Georgian, Indian, Turkic, Berber, Ethiopian, Balkan, Russian, ARab, people right from the 7th century until Europeans and Russians came back in the 1800s. I.e. they were oppressors for 1100 years of non-Africans and are still oppressing Africans now. In contrast, the West was the oppressor from the 1700s to the 1900s, 200~300 years on and off and that was as the oppressor of Africans and ruled the Arabs from the late 1800s to the 1940s~1960s

[Cronos]

Both those terms show how silly it is to think in terms of race as opposed to culture. If you meet Dominicans or Jamaican or Brazilians who have African blood, each of them will say they are culturally Domincan or Jamaican or Brazilian not by their skin color. And I’d agree with them. Among “whites”, there are cultural differences between Italians and Spanish, forget about Italians and Swedes. Even in the US, there is a cultural difference between Montana and Rhode Island

[Cronos]

The least black Arabs are from Sham

Sham???

[DTA]

Thanks for clarification.

[forkinsocket]

Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan.

[darth]

Yes, of course, there REALLY WERE SLAVE MARKETS openly operating in 1974.

[hershey]

Me, too.

[Cronos]

No worries mate — you were underplaying the guilt of the slamic world and overplaying that of the West. unintentionally of course, but we all should know the extent to which they did stuff

[Cronos]

thanks — it’s really hard to believe, eh? Then what is the Nation of Is going on about?? daft I call it

[Cronos]

The least black Arabs are from Sham : Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan.

Well, those aren't really Arabs at all. Arabs are Bedouins from what is now Saudi Arabia. Syrians are descendents of primarily Arameans (Ben-Hadad), mixed with Assyrians, Canaanites(aka Phoenicians) blood with traces of GReek, Persian, Turkic and Frank/Germanic blood. While Lebanese are Phoenicians (i.e. Canaanites) with some Greek and French/Frank blood. Jordanians are Moabites, Ammonites, other Canaanites and will have Israelite blood mixed with pure Arab blood. Palestinians are a mixture from a number of countries in the M-E

[forkinsocket]

If Arabic is your native language, you’re an Arab. The distiction between Arabs & Arabized are used by anthropologists & historians & almost all Sham Arabs refer to themselves as Arabs except for Maronites, Syriacs, & Assyrians. One exception is one Palestinian I met who did not wish to be called an Arab.

[Cronos]

Well, yes, by your definition of what a person calls themselves, you are correct. However, historically, genetically, these people originate from the peoples I indicated hence they have a lighter skin color. The force of Arabization we can see even now in Sudan as the article indicates where blacks are encouraged to think of themselves as Arabs (because Arabs are the Holy people and to make yourselves holy you need to be like them and even better be like Mo and grow your beard long -- as the Taliban forced young men in Afghanistan to do).

You're right about the Christian Middle-Easterners preferring to call themselves by their own names instead of being assimilated ("Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated")

however, the other people from the ME who are Moos and don't call themselves Arabs are the Berbers from north Africa -- many are now throughing that yoke off.

Ditto for Iran: I'm waiting for the native Iranis to realise the inherent dichtomy of being inheritors of a proud civilisation and living under a Bedo's religion.