The Mahdi Times The Mahdi Times July 2014 | Page 61

of oral literature, and the earliest
written accounts represent only the
endpoint of a long process of oral
narrative development [Garnaut, 2006].
Therefore, though the narrative as we
currently find it is apocryphal and its
historical context is late [Ma, 2006], it
certainly incorporates ancient Muslim
tradition.
This Old Arabic description of
Muhammad (s.a.w) as a dark-skinned
Arab is no doubt a part of the ancient
Muslim tradition that was brought to
China early. Because Chinese Islam was,
despite some sporadic intercourse,
intellectually isolated from the main
centres of Islam, it seems to have been
minimally impacted by the major
intellectual, culturally, and demographic
shifts that occurred in the Muslim
heartlands following the misnomered
‘Abassid Revolution of the eighth
century. These shifts I have generally
called the Aryanizing of Islam, because
Persian (Aryan) converts were the main
shapers of Islamic tradition following
the Revolution.

Newly introduced into Islam,
among other things, was a
virulent anti-black, anti-Arab
sentiment which ultimately ‘deArabized’ Muhammad (s.a.w) by
transfiguring him into a
ruddy-white Persian
[Muhammad, 2011; idem, 2010].

This Aryanising process seems to have
had minimal impact on Chinese Islam at
the time this myth of the Emperor’s
Dream was canonized and popularized.