Tariq Berry, The Unknown Arabs: Clear, Definitive Proof of the Dark Complexion of the Original Arabs

Revisionist history has imposed selective memory suppression techniques to separate the people dwelling in the area called today Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as peoples distinct from cultural affiliation and family ties. De facto, the Arab world is far more extensive than many had previously assumed. Long before 700 B.C., there has been an ongoing pre-Islamic migration of Arabs from Yemen to Somalia, Mombassa, Mozambique, and Dar es-Salaam to Timbuktu. Writers such as Philostratus and Strabo around the 1st century B.C., refer to the areas east of the Nile in Africa as “Arabia” and its inhabitants called either Arabs, Indians or Ethiopians. In reality, Africa has always been an extension of the Arabian Peninsula and linked together by the Arabs since time immemorial. The crossing by the straits of Bab el-Mandab, the Red Sea, and the Canal of Suez have always been the passageway linking these ancient Arab families together from Yemen to Sudan and all the way to Lake Chad and the Sahara Desert. Reasonably so that, we find the Kunta Arabs in today’s Mali, Senegal, Mauritania, Gambia, and Guinea. The Fulani are found both in Africa and in Saudi Arabia as well. When the Muslims were still a persecuted minority group during the early days of Islam, the Prophet Mohamed told them to immigrate to Africa to seek refuge. Remnants of the Ommayad (the Quraish clan) fleeing from the Abbasis’ persecution escaped to the region of Lake Chad around 750 A.D. Many ancient tribes of Africa such as the Berbers, Yorubas, Ibo, Songhai-Sonike, Fulani, etc … all came from the Arabian Peninsula. The Arabs from Yemen who landed in west Africa gave the name “Jana” to what is known as Ghana today. Jana, an Arabic word, means "Small Paradise". The Yoruba (descendants of Ya’rub the son of Qahtan from Yemen), the Ibo, Kanuri, the Akan, the Wolof (descendants of Abu Bakr Ibn’ Umar, the Sanhaja Himyarite tribe of Yemen, coming from the original Zenaga, a branch of the Sanhaja tribe from which came the name Senegal). The Asanti (Ashanti), the Zaghawa, the Igala, the Bariba, the Mandingo, the Songhai, etc… are all descendants of the Arabs. The ancient people called Ethiopians or Abyssinians are in reality Arabs who migrated from Yemen. In Arabic, the name for Ethiopians is El-Habash. El-Habash is an ancient tribe from Yemen. Contrary to today’s ideological stereotypes of what an Arab should look like, the original Arabs were Black or brown-skinned in complexion. Ibn Hazim of the 10th century A.D. wrote that, “El-Hassan was nicknamed the “Father of the Tar” because of the intensity of his brownness”. El-Hasan was the son of Ali (from whom the Alawites are the descendants), descendant of Abu Talib, the cousin of the Prophet Mohammed. Ancient Arabs considered dark complexion to be the complexion of a pure Arab. Fahidh, the famous Arab writer of the 8th century A.D. wrote that, “the Arabs take pride in their black complexion.” El-Fadl ibn Abbas from the Quraish tribe, says, “I am pure because the color of the Arabs is brown”. Ali, the son of Abu Talib and cousin of the Prophet Mohammed is described by Ibn Saad of the 9th century A.D.: “He was a black-skinned man with big, heavy eyes.” Musa the son of Abdella, son of Ali, is of the clan of Mansa Musa, the king of Mali who lived in the 14th century. Musa and Mohamed were the brothers of Idriss (the Idrisis found in Morocco). The Alawites, Idrisis, and the Shurafa all claiming descent from the Prophet Mohamed were as black as night and they were noble, pure Arabs. The Idrisis ruled Morocco since 788 and founded Andalusia (the children of Hamoud) and El-Yamama (the children of El-Akkader). The Shurafa who descended from the Prophet formed a kingdom in Sudan. While the ancient Arabs described themselves as the Black or brown-skinned color, they identified the Persians and Romans as the “Red” or light-skinned color. Most of the slaves of the Arabs at that time were “Red”, or light-skinned non-Arabs coming from regions such as Persia, Greece, Rome, and other places in Europe. The Arabs were once a very dark-skinned people described as Black. Then, they conquered and assimilated so many non-Arab such as the Persians, Turks, Greeks, Romans, etc… They conquered and took many non-Arab women through concubinage. During Arab dominance, the Europeans were the major source of slaves. As A. Rogers wrote: “Each time Yakub Al-Mansur (the Moroccan ruler who dominated Spain for 800 years and the third ruler of the Muʾminid dynasty of Spain and North Africa ) returned to Africa from his campaigns in Europe, he did so with large numbers of white slaves”. To the point that, being “white” (red) meant being a slave because most of the Arabs’s slaves were European. Europe has to reinvent itself by working hard to overturn this perception of reality and bury this shameful past. The mixing of Arab with European and Indo-European blood was ongoing for more than a thousand of years. After expelling the Arabs who invaded and occupied Europe for seven hundred years, the Europeans landed in Africa in the late 15th century for a revenge campaign against the Moors (Arabs) who invaded their land in the 8th century. Most of the Almoravid army who conquered Spain came from Senegal. During the early 8th century, Arabs ruled a vast empire from North Africa to the Middle East and into central India. They invaded Spain and Portugal in the early 700 and in 732 they crossed into France. In 902 the Arabs captured the island of Sicily. Through invasion and colonization, the Arab household became a mixed household, much lighter complexion Arabs than they were originally. Arabia became predominantly the land of non-Arabs. The Prophet Mohamed shared one of his dreams to Abu Bakr as following:” In a dream, I saw myself following a herd of black sheep. Then a group of white sheep came and mixed with the black sheep until they became so many that the black sheep could no longer be seen in the herd of sheep.” Abu Bakr told the Prophet that the black sheep represented the Arabs and the white sheep the Persians. All Arabs trace their common origin to Shem (Sam) the son of Noah. Shem is considered the ancestor of the Semitic peoples, including the Arabs and the Hebrews. The children of Shem are Lodh, Arphaxad, Elam (the Elamites of ancient Mesopotamia), Aram, and Ashudh. There are four different families of Arabs, each having Shem the son of Noah as a common ancestor: the Arab el-Baaida; the Arab el-Aariba (the Qahtani Arabs); the Arab el-Musta’riba (the Adnani Arabs who descended from Ishmael the son of Abraham and Hagar, the Quraish, the Prophet’s tribe came from this group of Arabs); and the Banu Keturah or children of Keturah. Banu means children. Keturah is the wife Abraham married after the death of Sarah. The Banu Keturah like many Arab family lineage is also widespread in the area called today Africa. Afer is the son of Abraham and his wife Keturah. Ifriqiya or Ifriqiyah (Arabic: إفريقية) from which came the name Africa is derived from Afer (Ifer or Ifri), son of Abraham and Keturah. The Afran or Africans are descendants of Afer.

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