Editing Racism (section)

====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>