Al-Jahiz - 9-th, 2004 - 09: 1   (Posted By: Webmaster)

Al-Jahiz

LORD OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF ARAB LITERATURE (A.D. 778--868) FOR AN APPRAISAL of Al-Jahiz,
let us turn to the eulogies of three savants.

" The most genial writer of the age, if not of Arabic literature, and the founder of the Arab prose style, was the grandson of a Negro slave, Amr ben Bahr, known as Al-Jahiz, 'The GoggleEyed'," says Gibbs, Arabic scholar.
" Al-Jahiz," says Christopher Dawson, "was the greatest scholar and stylist of the ninth century."

P. K. Hitti says, "An early representative of the zoological and anthropological sciences was Abu-Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Jahiz...whose Kitab-al-Hawaya... contains germs of later theories of evolution, adaptation, and animal psychology. AL-Jahiz knew how to obtain ammonia from animal offal by dry distillation· His influence over later zoologists.., is manifest. But the influence of Al-Jahiz as a radical theologian and a man of letters if greater. He... was one of the most productive and frequently quoted scholars in Arabic literature. His originality, wit, satire, and learning, made him widely known."
Al-Jahiz, who seems to have been a very dark Negro, started life in most humble surroundings but by studiousness, a prodigious memory, remarkable powers of assimilation, and unruffled good nature, he reached the highest rank of scholarship and esteem.

Born at Basra in Asia Minor, he studied philology, philosophy, and science there under the noted Mu'tazlite teacher an-Nassam. Of an independent spirit, he was not long in striking out on an intellectual path of his own, and founded his own school of thought, known as the Jahizite. Such was his good-natured wit, his breadth of mind, and his impartiality, that he was beloved even by members of the fanatical religious sects that normally would have treated him as a heretic. An indefatigable reader, Al-Jahiz would hire the shops of booksellers outright so that he could spend the whole night reading in them. His works are voluminous. Few writers were as industrious as he, and still fewer wrote over such a long period of time. He was prolific until he died in A.D. 868 at the age of ninety. He wrote, as Gibbs says, "with a careless loquacity, alternately grave and gay, exalted and extravagant. His wit was ready and his industry was immense."

Al-Jahiz' masterpiece is The Book of Animals, in seven volumes. Among his other works are The Merit of the Turks, In Praise o/Merchants and Dispraise of Officials, The Superiority of Speech to Silence, The Superiority in Glory of the Black Race over the White, and The Book of Eloquence and Rhetoric. In his works, which contain the most varied and curious kinds of information, he presents all sides of the story. Thus in his Book of Animals we find him discussing animals pro and con, as, for instance, the good and the bad qualities of the dog. In personal appearance Al-Jahiz was unprepossessing. His eyes seemed as if they were about to pop out of his head. It is related that Caliph AL-Mutawakkil engaged him to teach his son, but when he saw him, he was so repelled by his looks that he paid him a large sum and dismissed him. Later, however, he recalled him and placed the young prince under his tutorship, although he strongly disagreed with Al-Jahiz' religions beliefs.

During the closing years of his long life, Al-Jahiz suffered greatly from ill health. "The maladies of nature," he complained, "have conspired against my body. If I eat something cold, it attacks me in my feet, and if I take anything warm, it attacks me in the head. The heaviest weight I am called on to bear is my age." Nonetheless, he let nothing interfere with his literary labors. Yaqut lists over 120 books by him. In his Kitab al-Sudan wa l'-Bidan, or The Superiority in Glory of the Black Race over the White, Jahiz begins by naming certain Zengh (Negro) writers as "Loqman, whose writings are well-known and who was called "The Wise" by Mohamet in the Koran." He adds:

There were also Said ibn Jubair, a very pious man, highly esteemed for his profound knowledge of the traditions of the Prophet Mohamet; the Ethiopian, Bilal, of whom Caliph Omar said that he alone was worth a third of all Islam; Afga, the first to die in the holy wars of the Prophet; EI-Migdad, the first to fight in the holy war as a horseman; El Wanshi, who killed the false prophet, Musailima; and Julaibib, who died in battle after valiantly killing seven men, and who was buried with the Prophet's own hand. There were also Faraj, the barber-surgeon, who was so just that he was often called by the judges for counsel; and El-Haiqutan, the poet. When the white poet, Jarir, saw El-Haiqutan in a white robe on a feast day, he remarked, "He looks like the penis of a donkey wrapped in white paper." El-Haiqutan replied to him in a poem in which he said, "Though my hair is wooly and my skin black as coal I am generous and my honor shines. My color does not prevent my being valiant with my sword in battle. Know, you who would boast of your petty glory, that the race of Negroes is more glorious than your race because the Ethiopian Emperor, after meeting the whites, accepted Islam instead....

Jahiz here recites a poem by the celebrated poet Nusaib ibn Riah, a Negro, who says, "If ever you met the Negroes in battle you found them valiant and strong: Ask Ibn Amr who fought against them if he did not find their lances were long. Ask Ibn Jaifar what he got when he made war against us." Jahiz in his commentary adds that Nusaib says that the mulatto children of the Negro women are fully as brave as the blacks. Jahiz goes on to enumerate other noted Negroes as "El-Ghandaf, the most courageous man in the world, who attacked caravans single-handed; El-Maglul and his sons, who though slaves Were very generous and wise and were renowned among the people of the desert; Aflah, who attacked caravans in Khorassan single-handed and who was finally killed only because he was Unarmed and drunk."

We, said the Blacks, have conquered the country of the Arabs as far as Mecca and have governed them. We defeated Dhu Nowas Jewish ruler of Yemen and killed all the Himyarite princes, but you, white people, have never conquered our country. Our people, the Zenghs Negroes, revolted forty times in the Euphrates, driving the inhabitants from their homes and making Oboilah a bath of blood. Everyone knows that the Negroes are amongst the most generous of mortals--a quality that is found only among noble characters. Negroes are distinguished amongst other peoples by their natural gift for rhythmic dancing and the best artists on the drum, all of this without any special training. They are also the best singers. Their language is the easiest to pronounce. They are eloquent, are able to express themselves in a lively manner, and have no stutterers. It happens sometimes that Negro orators speak before their kings from morning till sunset without need for a pause.

Negroes are physically stronger than no matter what other people. A single one of them can lift stones of great weight and carry burdens such as several Whites could not lift nor carry between them. They are brave, strong, and generous as witness their nobility and general lack of wickedness. They are always gay, smiling, and optimistic, all of which are signs of their honesty and frank nature. There are, however, those who interpret these qualities as marks of a feeble mind or a calculating one. But this would be equivalent to saying that the most intelligent people and the most gifted are the most avaricious and the most callous. Nevertheless the Slavs, for example, are greedier than the Greeks and are, at the same time, less intelligent. Women and children, also, are less intelligent than men and are greedier. This proves that all the above-mentioned good traits are the gift of God, intelligence as well as goodness, generosity as well as bravery.

The Negroes say to the Arabs, "A sign of your barbarity is that when you were pagans you considered us your equals as regards the women of your race. After your conversion to Islam, however, you thought otherwise. Despite this the deserts swarm with the number our men who married your women and who became chiefs and fended you against your enemies."
You even have sayings in your language which vaunt the deeds our kings--deeds which you often placed above your own; this would not have done had you not considered them superior to your own.

Here Jahiz cites verses to prove this assertion and adds:
The Ethiopian, Akym ibn Akym, was more eloquent than Eli-Ajjaj. It is from him that the Syrians learnt the sciences and also from El Montagi ibn Nabhan, who was a native of Negroland and had a pierced ear. He had come to the Arabian desert as a child and left it with a complete knowledge of Arabic. Akym ibn Akym said in a poem, "On the day of the battle of Ghumdun we were like lions and on the Day of Yathrib we were the stallions of the Arabs. On the fearful Day of the Elephant the hearts of the Arabs deserted them and they fled on their camels."

Jahiz comments on this poem, and gives several extracts, and quotes an Arab poet, Labid, who in speaking of the battle said, "The very clouds seemed as if they were Ethiopians armed with lances." "Labid," he says, "used this imagery because when the Ethiopians, splendid in the blackness of their skins and in the vigor and strength of their superb bodies, attacked with their spears, bows, and arrows they spread an unimaginable terror around them." For the expression, "We were the stallions of the Arabs," Jahiz explains that the general gave the conquered city over to the troops for pillage and the Negroes cohabited with the captured women, which are mentioned in the following Arab verses:

Ask Musrif El Mwirri the general in question about the morning when he gave the captured virgins over to his weather-beaten Negro soldiers. On this occasion the Negroes fought you, Whites, in spite of your rage. Wahrig defended you with his Perisans, whilst the Ethiopian general commanded in the midst of the destruction. It was then the women of your race were enjoyed by a Negro, whose phallus was the size of a donkey's.

The Negroes can also be proud of the fact that the single dead person over whom the Prophet ever prayed was their ruler, the Emperior of Ethiopia. And this whilst the Prophet was in Medina and the tomb of the Emperor in Ethiopia. It was also this Ethiopian ruler who married Omm Habiba, daughter of Abu Sofyan, to the Prophet. We, say the Negroes, frighten the enemy by our blackness even as night is more fearful than day. Wooly hair, too, is the finest and strongest. Black is superior. Black cows are considered the best and to have the most durable hides for leather. The same is equally true of black donkeys. Black sheep give the creamiest milk. Mountains and stones are harder the blacker they are. The black lion is irresistible. Black dates are the sweetest .... Black ebony is the most solid and most durable of woods. The blackest hair is the most beautiful and in Paradise everyone will have black hair. The pupils of the eye, too, are black and are they not the most precious part of the human body? The most exciting spot of a woman's body are the lips of her parts and the blacker these are the more beautiful. Under every comparison, say the Blacks, we are like the night.

No other color is as durable as black. When it is said that such a one is of "white, noble, and distinguished breed" it is not whiteness of skin that is being praised but spotlessness of character. The men of the tribe of Beni Moghira pride themselves on their dark color. The Beni Moghira are a dark-skinned clan amongst the Beni Makhsoum. One of them, Omar ibn Abdallah said, "I am black and I am famous, I belong to a family celebrated in Arabia. Whoever crosses swords with me will find one who is noble and strong."

The ten sons of Abd el Mottalib the grandfather of Mohammed were all black and strong; so was Abdallah ibn Abbas, Mohamet's cousin. The members of the family of Abu Talib a relation of Mohammed and the father of the Sultan Ali were all more or less Negroid in color. The Negroes, Jahiz goes on to say, exceed the whites in numbers. The greater portion of the earth is peopled by blacks. This includes not only Africa but all of southern Asia as far as China. As for that greatest of all God's gifts, children, Negro women exceed white ones in fertility. " Negro men and women haven't many children with peoples of other races. Black women have very little liking for men not of their race.... "He also finds that the Negroes are superior in what is very highly prized by the Arabs--sexual competence.

The blacks above all men have the greatest sexual desire-the man for the women and the woman for the man. Black women are the most agreeable sexually of all women. We have some historic data and poems on this and we have taught you and other peoples on matter. The Arab poet, Ferazdag, the greatest connoisseur of who had experimented with the women of all races, did he not their equal among the black women and married Umm Mekkive, Negro woman, for whom he abandoned all other women, so much she know how to satisfy him. He has said, "How many young are there not among the Negroes with sexual passions flaming like furnace and like a goblet of khalani wood...?"

The Negroes also have the sweetest breath and the greatest amount of saliva being in this respect like the dog as compared with other animals. As we said the Blacks are more numerous than the Whites since they are made up of the Ethiopians, the Fezzans, Berbers, Copts, Nubians, Faghwans, the people of Meroe, Ceylon, India, Quamar and Indo-China. The isles between Africa and China are all peopled with Blacks, that is Ceylon, Kalah, Zabig. Most of the Arabs also are as black as we, the Negroes are, and cannot be counted amongst the Whites. As for the Hindus they are even darker than the Arabs....

The Copts natives of Egypt are also a black race. Abraham wished to have a child by one of their race and thus Ishmael the ancestor of the Arabs was born. The Prophet Mohammet also had a child by Mary the Copt. If a black skin is thought unsightly what then must be said of the French, the Greeks, and the Slavs with their thin, red, straight hair and beard? The paleness of their eyelids and their lips appear to us, Negroes, very ugly...God did not make us black in order that we should be ugly; our color comes from the sun. The proof of this is that among the Arabs are also black tribes as the Beni Solaim ibn Mansour .... These have Greek slaves whose off springs in the third generation become as black as the Beni Solaim because of the climate.

Jahiz goes on to tell how the sun affects the color of even the animals, after which he speaks of the cleverness of the Hindus in mathematics, the arts, and the sciences, and cites a Negro poet in praise of Irar, an intelligent, broad-shouldered Negro. The Negroes, he adds, are fine singers and have a natural gift for cooking. As for trustworthiness, they excel all others. The bankers confide their money and their businesses to them because they have found them more experienced and worthy of trust.

One hardly ever finds a Greek or a Khorassan in a position of trust in a bank. When the bankers of Basra Jahiz' birthplace saw the excellent affairs that Faraj Abu Kub, a Negro, had negotiated for his master, each of them took a Negro assistant. Caliph Sultan Abdelmalik ibn Mcrwan often said, "El Adgham is a master among all the Orientals." This El Adgham is also mentioned by Abdullar ibn Khnazim, who calls him, "An Ethiopian, a black son of Ethiopia."
This concludes our essay on the Glory of the Black Race.

[Marcus Garvey]