Editing Racism (section)

===Ethnocentrism and proto-racism===
[[File:Ksenophontov noah.jpg|thumb|The [[Book of Genesis]]'s biblical curse on [[Canaan (son of Ham)|Canaan]], which was often misinterpreted as [[Curse of Ham|a curse on his father]] [[Ham (son of Noah)|Ham]], was used to justify [[Slavery in the United States|slavery in 19th century America]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hess |first1=Richard S. |title=The Old Testament: A Historical, Theological, and Critical Introduction |date=2016 |publisher=Baker Academic |isbn=978-1-4934-0573-2 |page=59 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kfvBDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT59 |access-date=4 October 2017}}</ref>]]

====Aristotle====
[[Bernard Lewis]] has cited the [[Greek philosophy|Greek philosopher]] [[Aristotle]] who, in his discussion of slavery, stated that while Greeks are free by nature, "[[barbarian]]s" (non-Greeks) are slaves by nature, in that it is in their nature to be more willing to submit to a [[Despotism|despotic]] government.<ref name=Lewis /> Though Aristotle does not specify any particular races, he argues that people from nations outside Greece are more prone to the burden of slavery than those from [[Ancient Greece|Greece]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Bernard |last=Lewis |author-link=Bernard Lewis |title=Race and slavery in the Middle East: an historical enquiry |year=1992 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-505326-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/raceslaveryinmid0000lewi/page/54 54–55] |url=https://archive.org/details/raceslaveryinmid0000lewi/page/54}}</ref> While Aristotle makes remarks about the most natural slaves being those with strong bodies and slave souls (unfit for rule, unintelligent) which would seem to imply a physical basis for discrimination, he also explicitly states that the right kind of souls and bodies do not always go together, implying that the greatest determinate for inferiority and natural slaves versus natural masters is the soul, not the body.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/distance_arc/las_casas/Aristotle-slavery.html |title=Aristotle on Slavery |publisher=[[Oregon State University]] |access-date=14 November 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130906070456/http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/distance_arc/las_casas/Aristotle-slavery.html |archive-date=6 September 2013}}</ref> The modern version of racism based on the idea of [[Heredity|hereditary]] inferiority had not yet been developed, and Aristotle never explicitly stated whether he believed the supposed natural inferiority of Barbarians was caused by environment and climate (like many of his contemporaries) or by birth.<ref>{{cite book |last=Isaac |first=Benjamin H. |author-link=Benjamin Isaac |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jfylyRawl8EC&q=aristotle+racism&pg=PA175 |title=The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-691-12598-5 |page=175 |access-date=14 November 2013}}</ref>

Historian Dante A. Puzzo, in his discussion of Aristotle, racism, and the ancient world writes that:<ref>{{cite journal |title=Racism and the Western Tradition |first=Dante A. |last=Puzzo |journal=[[Journal of the History of Ideas]] |volume=25 |issue=4 |year=1964 |pages=579–586 |doi=10.2307/2708188 |jstor=2708188}}</ref>

<blockquote>Racism rests on two basic assumptions: that a correlation exists between physical characteristics and moral qualities; that mankind is divisible into superior and inferior stocks. Racism, thus defined, is a modern conception, for prior to the XVIth century there was virtually nothing in the life and thought of the West that can be described as racist. To prevent misunderstanding a clear distinction must be made between racism and [[ethnocentrism]]&nbsp;... The Ancient [[Hebrews]], in referring to all who were not Hebrews as [[Gentile]]s, were indulging in ethnocentrism, not in racism. ... So it was with the [[Greeks|Hellenes]] who denominated all non-Hellenes—whether the wild [[Scythians]] or the [[Egyptians]] whom they acknowledged as their mentors in the arts of [[civilization]]—Barbarians, the term denoting that which was strange or foreign.</blockquote>

==== Early antisemitism ====
Some scholars suggest that anti-Jewish policies under the [[Hellenistic period|Hellenistic empires]] and the [[Roman Empire]] constitute examples of ancient racism.<ref>{{cite book |last=Flannery |first=Edward H. |author-link=Edward Flannery |title=The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-three Centuries of Antisemitism |publisher=Paulist Press |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-8091-4324-5 |page=11}}</ref><ref name="gruen">{{cite encyclopedia |year=1993 |title=Hellenism and Persecution: Antiochus IV and the Jews |encyclopedia=Hellenistic History and Culture |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |last=Gruen |first=Erich S. |author-link=Erich S. Gruen |editor-last=Green |editor-first=Peter |pages=250–252}}</ref><ref>Benjamin Isaac, ''The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity'' (Princeton University Press 2004).</ref> Other scholars have criticized this view as based on an ahistorical conception of race,<ref>{{Cite news |last=Seth |first=Vanita |date=19 August 2022 |title=When Did Racism Begin? The history of race has animated a highly contentious debate. |url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/when-did-racism-begin |work=The Chronicle of Higher Education}}</ref> and argued that such policies were aimed at repressing a religious group resistant to imperialism and conformity rather than a racialized entity.<ref name="tcherikover">Tcherikover, Victor, ''Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews'', New York: Atheneum, 1975</ref><ref name="Bohak">Bohak, Gideon. "The Ibis and the Jewish Question: Ancient 'Antisemitism' in Historical Context" in Menachem Mor et al., ''Jews and Gentiles in the Holy Land in the Days of the Second Temple, the Mishna and the Talmud'', Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2003, pp. 27–43.</ref>

====Medieval Arab writers====
{{See also|Medieval Arab attitudes to Black people}}

Bernard Lewis has also cited historians and geographers of the [[MENA|Middle East and North Africa]] region,<ref name="Lewis53">{{cite book |first=Bernard |last=Lewis |title=Race and slavery in the Middle East: an historical enquiry |url=https://archive.org/details/raceslaveryinmid0000lewi |url-access=registration |year=1992 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-505326-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/raceslaveryinmid0000lewi/page/53 53]}}</ref> including [[Al-Muqaddasi]], [[Al-Jahiz]], [[Al-Masudi]], [[Abu Rayhan Biruni]], [[Nasir al-Din al-Tusi]], and [[Ibn Qutaybah]].<ref name="Lewis53" /> Though the [[Qur'an]] expresses no racial prejudice, Lewis argues that ethnocentric prejudice later developed among [[Arab]]s, for a variety of reasons:<ref name=Lewis53 /> their [[Early Muslim conquests|extensive conquests]] and [[Arab slave trade|slave trade]]; the influence of [[Aristotelianism|Aristotelian]] ideas regarding slavery, which some [[Early Islamic philosophy|Muslim philosophers]] directed towards [[Zanj]] ([[Bantu peoples|Bantu]]<ref name="Tlosfea">{{cite book |last1=Khalid |first1=Abdallah |title=The Liberation of Swahili from European Appropriation |date=1977 |publisher=East African Literature Bureau |page=38 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M4QOAAAAYAAJ |access-date=10 June 2014}}</ref>) and [[Turkic peoples]];<ref name="Lewis">{{cite book |first1=Kevin |last1=Reilly |first2=Stephen |last2=Kaufman |first3=Angela |last3=Bodino |title=Racism: A Global Reader |year=2002 |publisher=[[M. E. Sharpe]] |isbn=978-0-7656-1060-7 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/racismglobalread0000unse/page/52 52–58] |url=https://archive.org/details/racismglobalread0000unse/page/52}}</ref> and the influence of [[Judeo-Christian]] ideas regarding divisions among humankind.<ref>{{cite journal |title='Race', slavery and Islam in Maghribi Mediterranean thought: the question of the Haratin in Morocco |first=Chouki |last=El Hamel |journal=The Journal of North African Studies |volume=7 |issue=3 |year=2002 |pages=29–52 [39–40]|quote=Neither in the Qur'an nor in the [[Hadith]] is there any indication of racial difference among humankind. But as a consequence of the Arab conquests, a mutual assimilation between [[Islam]] and the cultural and the scriptural traditions of Christian and Jewish populations occurred. Racial distinctions between humankind with reference to the [[Generations of Noah|sons of Noah]] is found in the [[Talmud|Babylonian Talmud]], a collection of rabbinic writings which dates back to the sixth century. |doi=10.1080/13629380208718472 |s2cid=219625829}}</ref> By the eighth century, anti-black prejudice among Arabs resulted in discrimination. A number of medieval Arabic authors argued against this prejudice, urging respect for all black people and especially [[Ethiopians]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Bernard |last=Lewis |author-link=Bernard Lewis |title=Race and slavery in the Middle East: an historical enquiry |year=1992 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-505326-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/raceslaveryinmid0000lewi/page/28 28–34] |url=https://archive.org/details/raceslaveryinmid0000lewi/page/28}}</ref> By the 14th century, a significant number of slaves came from [[sub-Saharan Africa]]; Lewis argues that this led to the likes of Egyptian historian Al-Abshibi (1388–1446) writing that "[i]t is said that when the [black] slave is sated, he fornicates, when he is hungry, he steals."<ref>{{cite book |last=Lewis |first=Bernard |author-link=Bernard Lewis |title=Race and Slavery in the Middle East |year=2002 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-505326-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/raceslaveryinmid0000lewi/page/93 93] |url=https://archive.org/details/raceslaveryinmid0000lewi/page/93}}</ref> According to Lewis, the 14th-century Tunisian scholar [[Ibn Khaldun]] also wrote:<ref name="Lewis53" /><ref name="colorq">{{cite web |url=http://www.colorq.org/Articles/article.aspx?d=2002&x=arabviews |title=West Asian views on black Africans during the medieval era |publisher=Colorq.org |access-date=23 May 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231228121150/http://www.colorq.org/articles/article.aspx?d=2002&x=arabviews |archive-date=28 December 2023}}</ref>

<blockquote>...beyond [known peoples of black West Africa] to the south there is no civilization in the proper sense. There are only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings. They live in thickets and caves, and eat herbs and unprepared grain. They frequently eat each other. They cannot be considered human beings. Therefore, the Negro nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because (Negroes) have little that is (essentially) human and possess attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated.</blockquote>

According to [[Wesleyan University]] professor Abdelmajid Hannoum, French [[Orientalists]] projected racist and [[colonialist]] views of the 19th century into their translations of medieval Arabic writings, including those of Ibn Khaldun. This resulted in the translated texts [[racializing]] Arabs and [[Berbers|Berber]] people, when no such distinction was made in the originals.<ref>{{cite journal |jstor=3590803 |title=Translation and the Colonial Imaginary: Ibn Khaldûn Orientalist |first=Abdelmajid |last=Hannoum |date=1 January 2003 |journal=[[History and Theory]] |volume=42 |issue=1 |pages=61–81 |doi=10.1111/1468-2303.00230}}</ref> James E. Lindsay argues that the concept of an [[Arab nationalism|Arab identity]] itself did not exist until modern times,<ref>{{cite book |title=Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World |first=James E. |last=Lindsay |publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]] |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-313-32270-9 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/dailylifeinmedie00lind/page/12 12–15] |url=https://archive.org/details/dailylifeinmedie00lind/page/12}}</ref> though others like [[Robert Hoyland]] have argued that a common sense of [[Arab identity]] already existed by the 9th century.<ref>{{cite book |title=Arabia and the Arabs |first=Robert G. |last=Hoyland |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |year=2002 |isbn=9781134646357 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w5-EAgAAQBAJ |page=229}}</ref>