Alī’s son, Abå Jafar Muhammad, according to
Ibn Sad (d. 845), described Alī thusly: “He was
a black-skinned man with big, heavy eyes,
pot-bellied, bald, and kind of short.”
only sub-clans noted for their blackness. The
Banå Zuhra, the tribe from which the
Prophet’s (s.a.w) mother, Amīa bt. Wahb,
hailed, was likewise noted for its blackness.
This convergence of blackness, nobility and
Qurayshī ethnicity is further demonstrated in
these lines attributed to the seventh century
CE Qurayshī poet, al-Fadil b. al-Abbas, called
al-Akhdar al-LahabÊ “The Flaming Black”.
This blackness of the Quraysh tribe is not
insignificant to the religious history of Isl am.
The Quraysh were the custodians of the cult
of the Ka'ba in pre-Quranic Mecca and at
religious ceremonies they would declare
naÈnu ahlu ÏÏahi, “We are the People of AÏÏah”
and throughout Arabia they were known as
ahlu ÏÏah, the People of AÏÏah. In other
Al-Fadil is the Prophet Muhammad’s (s.a.w)
first cousin and he said: “I am the
blackskinned one (al-Akhdar). I am wellknown. My complexion is black. I am from
the noble house of the Arabs.”
Ibn Maníår (d. 1311) notes the opinion that alAkh∙ar here means aswad al-jilda,
‘Blackskinned’, and signifies that al-Fadil is
from khaliß al-arab, the pure Arabs, “because
the color of most of the Arabs is dark (aludma).”
Similarly Ibn BarrÊ (d. 1193) said also: “He (alFadil) means by this that his genealogy is
pure and that he is a pure Arab (arabÊ mahd)
because Arabs describe their color as black
(al-aswad).”
Thus, al-Fadil’s blackness (akhdar) is the visual
mark of his pure, Qurayshī background, being
born of a pure Arab mother and father. The
Quraysh consisted of several sub-clans. Abd
al-Mutãalib (a.s) and his descendants,
including Muhammad (s.a.w), belonged to the
Banå Hashim. Henry Lammens takes notice of
“les Haśimites, famille où dominait le sang
nègre” ,“the Hashimites, the family where
Black blood dominated”.
Lammens remarks that they are
“généralement qualifies de = آدمcouleur
foncée”,“generally described as adam = dark
colored”. But the Bani Hashim were not the
words, the black tribe par excellence
was also the AÏÏah-tribe par excellence
and custodians of the cult of the Black
God. Nevertheless, or rather as a
consequence, Muhammad’s (s.a.w)
greatest struggle was with his own
kinsmen, this black, AÏÏah-venerating
Quraysh tribe. In the end, however, it
would be the black Quraysh that became
the rulers of Islam, at least in the short
term. Not only were the Sunni caliphs
drawn from them, but the Shiite Imams,
descendents of the black Alī b. Abå Talib
(a.s), were likewise black QurayshÊ
Arabs.
One would thus expect the Qurayshī
Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w) to be black
too, especially since he reportedly
claimed to be a pure Arab for the house
of Hashim.
This would make him very blackskinned like the pure Arabs from that
tribe. Muhammad’s (s.a.w) pedigree
actually demands this as his whole
immediate family tree were pure, blackskinned Qurayshī Arabs. I quote again
Al-JaÈií’s important note in his Fakhr alsådan ala al-bidan,
“The ten lordly sons of Abd al Mutãalib