P841

Woe to you! Is there a Zanj woman with stinky armpits on earth who kindles her fire with a wet handkerchief except that her scent is good? Didn't you say what your uncle Imru' al-Qais (4) said? Didn't you see me whenever I came to Tariq... I found it good even if it was not perfumed.

 P926

 Abu Ubaida (1) said: Farazdaq (2) made a Zanj women pregnant, and she bore him a daughter Vsmaha Makiya, he was nicknamed after her, and he said: I am Abu Makiya. …………. Farazdaq said of the Zanj women:  Lord; the movement of the daughters of Zinj glares very enlightened.

 P980

 Said the wise: Hermaphrodite is going on among Bedouins, Kurds, Zinj and lunatics and every class, only among eunuchs it does not exist.

 P981

 Said the wise: the Zinj are the worst of people, because they are overheated in the wombs. As well as that from this country the uterus did not cool down. Preferred are the people of Babylon because of their moderation. They said: The sun burns the hair of the Zinj crisp……

 They said: the Zinj are among the nations with fresh breath, because of moisture in the mouths and the many empty stomachs (3), as well as dogs and some other animals have fresh breaths because the large number of water in the mouth. The smell from the mouth of a fasting person is from the lack of saliva, as well as mouth odor of last night.

 

The composed animals:

……and the giraffe between the camel from Nubia and al-Habash and the wild cow and the hyena, and its name is " ashtarika wabulnak "; and the hyena in the land of Abyssinia impregnates the camel and is created something between the camel and the hyena, …... She was called a giraffe because she was a composition, and she was one, as if she were a camel, a cow, and a hyena. And the giraffe in the words of the Arabs: the composed.

Taken from: The Unique Necklace (al-iqd al-farid), vol. I   Translated by Professor Issa J. BouHaia

 

THE BOOK OF THE CHRYSOLITE

p221

Nusayb ibn Rabah (5) entered the presence of [Caliph] Hisham (6) and recited:

If people race to reach high honors, your right hand

Precedes them spontaneously, followed by your left.

You’ve raised eulogy to the greatest extent, Hisham said: Ask me [for a gift]. Commander of the Faithful, Nusayb said: your hands are freer to give a gift than my tongue is to ask for one. No, you must ask, the caliph insisted: I have a daughter, Nusayb (5) said, who has inherited my blackness and so she has remained unmarried. I wish the Commander of the Faithful could give her something that would be her own. The caliph bestowed a plot of land on her as a fief and ordered that she be given jewelry and clothing. The black woman was married soon afterward.

 

Abd Allah ibn Jafar and Nusayb

Based on the authority of al-Asmah, al-Riyashi said, Nusayb ibn Rabah eulogized Abd Allah ibn Jafar, so the latter ordered that he be given a lot of money, an honorific suit of clothes, and female camels loaded with wheat and dates. You do all this for such a black slave?’ someone wondered. If he is a slave, Abd Allah ibn Jafar replied, his poetry about me is free; if he is black, his eulogy to me is white. All he has received is money that will be spent, clothing that will wear out, and female camels that will perish. On the other hand, he has given praise that will be continually related and eulogy that will abide.

 

Taken from: The Unique Necklace (al-iqd al-farid) by Ibn Abd Rabbih, vol. II Translated by Professor Issa J. BouHaia

 

THE BOOK OF THE RUBY

p111

Al-Ma’mun (8) and Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi (7)

Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi said: Al-Ma’mun asked me, Are you the black caliph? I replied: You have granted me pardon, and the slave of Banu al-Hashas (9) says:

When boasting, the poems of Banu al-Hashas’s slave

Stand for him in the place of lineage and wealth.

If I am a slave, my soul is free due to generosity

Or if I am black-skinned, I am of white character.

Al-Ma’mun said: Uncle, jesting has led you to serious talk. Then he recited:

Blackness does not belittle a gallant man

Nor does it belittle a refined, intelligent young man.

If blackness has a share of you,

My share of you is your white morals.

Al-Ma’mun said: Of the sayings of the wise, I like: Generosity is spending what one has, and avarice is denying the blessings of the Worshiped One, may He be exalted.

 

THE BOOK OF THE RUBY

p258

A chapter on silence

Wiseman Luqman (10) used to sit with David, may God bless him and grant him peace, to learn from him. He was a black slave. One day Luqman saw David making an iron shield and wondered at him, for he had never seen a shield.  Luqman did not ask him what he was making and David did not tell him, until the shield was completed after a year and David measured it against himself and said: A strong shield for a day of fighting. Luqman said: Silence is judicious but few are those who keep it.

 

Taken from: The Unique Necklace (al-iqd al-farid) by Ibn Abd Rabbih, vol. III Translated by Professor Issa J. BouHaia

 

THE BOOK OF THE EMERALD

p80

The people of Mecca were asked: How good was Ata ibn Abi Rabah among you? They said: He was like good health whose value is not known until it is lost. Ata was flat-nosed, paralytic and lame; then he became blind. His mother was black and she was named Baraka.

 

THE BOOK OF THE UNIQUE JEWEL

p240

Dhia al-Rumma and a black slave

Al-Asma’I (11) related that Dhi al-Rumma (12) said: I saw a black slave belonging to the tribe of Asad, who came to us from the direction of al-Yamama. He was like a beast because of his long lonely stay among the camels. He would meet with peasants and not understand their speech, and he would be unable to make them understand him. When he saw me, he felt at ease with me and then said: O Ghaylan, may God curse a country in which there is no Arab, and may God damn the poet who said: He is of a free earth but of a strange soil. …………

(1) Abu Ubaida: maybe Abu Ubaida Ma’mar ibn ul-Muthanna-Abu al-Mukhtar Firas b. Khindif , (728–825) was an early Muslim scholar of Arabic philology.

(2) Farazdaq: Arab poet; (641-730). See also on him my webpages: Al-Jahiz 869; Ibn Abd Rabbih 940; Abd al-Karim ibn M. al Samani  1172; Ibn al Jawzi 1200; Ibn Mansur (1290).

(3)They have the cleanest teeth of mankind because they have much saliva. This is repeated with variations by: Ibn Qutayba (880); Ibn Abd Rabbih (d940); Al-Jahiz (869); Abu Hilal Al-Askari (1005 AD); Ibn Butlan (1066); Abu Ubayd Al Bakri (1067); Al-Raghib al-Isfahani (1109); Al-Zamakhshari (d1144); Ibn al Jawzi (1200); At Tahqiq fi sira ar raqiq (1250); al-Abshihi (1450); Al Amsati al Hanafi (1478).µ

(4) on this poet see my webpage: Imru’u-l-Qays: Diwan of Imru’u-l-Qays (6th century)

(5) for this poet see my webpage Abu’l-Faraj al-Isfahani: Kitab al-aghani; (Book of songs) (d971)

(6) Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik was the tenth Umayyad caliph, ruling from 724 until his death in 743.

(7) Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi (d839) son of caliph al-Mahdi.

(8) al-Ma’mun bi-Allah: al-Ma'mun, was the seventh Abbasid caliph, who reigned from 813 until his death in 833.

(9) the slave of Banu al-Hashas was a black poet called Suhaym (d 660).

(10) Luqman the Wise: Loqman (mythical black philosopher from Nubia or Ethiopia). On Luqman the wise see my webpage of: Annon: Hamzanama (The Story of Hamza)(15th); Abd al Halim 1312; al-Tarsusi 12th; Al-Jahiz (776-869) Al-Fakhar al-Sudan. Luqman is presented as the model of the wise person in the Quran: XXXI 11/12-18/19.

(11) Al-Asmaʿi: Abd al-Malik ibn Qurayb al-Aṣmaʿi; c. 740-828/833 CE), or Asmai; an early philologist and one of three leading Arabic grammarians of the Basra school.

(12) Dhi al-Rumma: early Bedouin poet.