Al-Jahiz, Book of the Glory of the Black Race Introduction by Simon Starr, (House of Starr 2015).
Al-Jahiz, Abu Uthman Amr ibn Babi al-Kinani al-Basri, 781-868/9, was a Muslim polymath from Basra, in what is now Iraq. He wrote over 100 books on Arabic grammar, zoology, poetry, lexicography and rhetoric. His works on zoology have particularly gained the interest of modern scholars, as it has been claimed that he propounded a theory of evolution centuries before Charles Darwin. This is mistaken. Al-Jahiz held the orthodox Muslim – and Christian belief – of his time that the world’s creatures had been created by the Almighty, separate and complete, and had not developed from previous forms. Where he was pioneering instead is in his understanding and description of the interconnectedness of the natural world. He should therefore be respected instead as an early scholar and forerunner of modern ecology.
Racism is explicitly condemned by Mohammed in the Quran. Nevertheless, as the Arab slave trade in Black Africans developed, racist attitudes justifying their enslavement also appeared. These are very much of the sort that were later expressed by White Europeans during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade – Blacks were stupid, lazy, sexually promiscuous and thieving. But Black Africans were also the subjects of much admiration as well as after the foundation of Black Muslim kingdoms. The great 12th century Arab traveller, Ibn Battuta, said that they would be excellent Muslims, if only they didn’t hold Whites in such contempt. Al-Jahiz himself had a Black grandfather, and the Book of the Glory of the Black Race was his defence of Black Africans against Arab racism. Starr’s introduction not only includes a brief description of Al-Jahiz’s life and career, but also the Zanj rebellion of the 9th century against the Abbasid caliphate, to the participants of which he dedicates the book, and the Year of the Elephant, an invasion of Arabia by the Christian Ethiopian king Abraha and conflict with the pagan Arabs over Mecca.
One of the most striking and important passages in the Al-Jahiz’s book, according to YouTube, is a passage where states very clearly that Blacks have not been given their characteristic skin colour by the Lord as a punishment. It’s just a natural adaptation to their climate and environment. This directly attacks one of the religious prejudices used to justify Black enslavement, that their colour and status as slaves was imposed upon them for their sinful nature.
Al-Jahiz’s book, however, is short, only 32 pages. The rest of the book, going up to page 87, is an exposition of Kemetics. I think this is a Black American new religious movement centred around worship of the Atum and based on ancient Egyptian paganism. Starr appears to be an Afrocentrist, as he begins the book with a quote from the late 18th century French traveller, the Count de Volney, that the Sphinx’s features are that of a negro. Kemetics is the latest in a series of Black religious, such as the various forms of Black Islam, Rastarianism and the Black Hebrew Israelites which attempt to centre Blacks as the true recipients of spirituality and salvation against White oppression. It is yet another expression of the Afrocentrist belief in ancient Egypt as a Black civilisation with superior culture and religion.
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