Ibn Butlan: Taqwim al-Sihha (Maintenance of health)

(d1066) a Christian monk and doctor in Baghdad.
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Ibn Butlan (1038/1075?) was an Arab Nestorian Christian physician who was active in Baghdad. He wrote the Taqwim al-Sihhah (The Maintenance of Health). The work treated matters of hygiene, dietetics, and exercise. It emphasized the benefits of regular attention to the personal physical and mental well-being. The popularity and publication of this medieval text of Middle Eastern origin continued into the sixteenth century. Where East Africa is concerned is he well known for his information on the characteristics of Zanj slaves.

Taken from : The translation of: Le Taqwim al-Sihha (Tacuini Sanitatis) d'Ibn Butlan

The music, the psychological conditions and the remedies to the problems:
Name: Organ and Zamr (1)
Nature: dumb singer or some powerful song
Best variety: which is accorded proportionally to the melody.
Usefulness: when being sung slightly
Problems: when it makes the poem impossible to hear.
End of problems:  respect the proportions.
Use according to the temperament: all
Use according to the age: all
Use according to the season: completely
Use according to the country : urban.
Choices: The use of the organ and the Zamr are such that in many cases, the composer of the music meets in the song a shortage in the high notes, a shortage that the strings can not compensate for; it is then that the Zamr replaces them as well as the high note of the bam (2) and the even higher one of the zir (3), the Zamr is a medium between the one who pronounces the words- the singer-and that which remains silent-the strings- what allows us to define him as a dumb singer. To play the Zamr one chooses the Zinj because of their big volume in their lungs, the bigness of their lips to keep the qasab (4) and the coldness of their hart this concerning their lack of breath. But (they are not recommended) to sing because of their problems with pronunciation.

Ibn Butlan : Risala fi shira al-raqiq wa-taclib al-abib :
a slave-traders vademecum (d1066) a Christian monk and doctor in Baghdad.
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Taken from : B. Lewis : Race and slavery in the Middle East. (and some other books)
          Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople. by Bernard lewis
.

(On slaves) As guards of persons and property, Indians and Nubians, as laborers, servants and eunuchs Zanj and as soldiers Turks and Slavs.

Armenians (slaves) would be beautiful
were it not for ........
Their women are useless for pleasure.
In fine, the Armenians are the worst of the whites
as the Zanj are the worst of the blacks.
And how much do they resemble one another
in the strength of their bodies,
their great wickedness, and their coarse natures!"
.

The Berber women are from the island of Barbara (sic), which is between the west and the south. Their color is mostly black, though some pale ones can be found among them. If you can find one whose mother is of Kutama (5), whose father is of Sanhaja  (6), and whose origin is Masmuda (7), then you will find her naturally inclined to obedience and loyalty in all matters, active in service, suited both to motherhood and to pleasure, for they are the most solicitous in caring for their children. Abu Uthman the slave-dealer (8) says, If it happens that a Berber girl with her racial excellence is imported at the age of nine, spends three years in Medina and three years in Mecca, comes to Iraq at the age of fifteen and is educated in Iraq, and is bought at the age of twenty-five, then she adds to the excellence of her race the roguishness of the Medinans, the languor of the Meccans, and the culture of the women of Iraq. Then she is worthy to be hidden in the eyelid and placed in the eye.
The Yemeni women are of the same race as the Egyptians, with the body of the Berbers, the roguishness of the Medinans, and the languor of the Meccans. They are the mothers of handsome children somewhat resembling the Bedouin Arabs.
The Zaranji women are from a country called Zaranj (9). Ibn Khurradadhbeh says that from this place to the city of Multan (10) is a journey of two months, and Multan is in the middle of India. A peculiarity of this race is that during sexual intercourse they sweat a liquid like musk, but they are not good for motherhood.
The Zanj women have many bad qualities. The blacker they are, the uglier their faces, the more pointed their teeth, the less use they are and the more likely to do some harm. For the most part, they are of bad character, and they frequently run away. It is not in their nature to worry. Dancing and rhythm are innate and ingrained in them. Since their utterance is obscure, they have been compensated with music and dance. It is said that if a Zanji were to fall from heaven to earth, he would beat time as he fell. They have the cleanest teeth of mankind because they have much saliva (11), and they have much saliva because they have bad digestion. They can endure hard work. If the Zanji has enough to eat, you can chastise him heavily and he will not complain. There is no pleasure to be got from their women because of their stench and the coarseness of their bodies.
The Ethiopian women. Most of them have gracious, soft, and weak bodies. They are subject to phthisis and hectic fever and are no good for singing or dancing. They are delicate and do not thrive in any country other than that in which they were born. They are good, obliging, tractable, and trustworthy, and are distinguished be strength of character and weakness of body, just as the Nubians are distinguished by strength of body despite their slenderness and also by weakness of character and shortness of life because of bad digestion.
The women of Mecca are languorous, feminine, with supple wrists and of a white color tinged with brown. Their figures are beautiful, their bodies lissome, their mouths clean and cool, their hair curly, their eyes sickly and languid.
The women of Zaghawa (12) are of vicious character and full of grumbles. Their ill nature and evil disposition lead them to do terrible things. They are worse then the Zanj and then all the black races. Their women are useless for pleasure, and their men are useless for service.
The Bujja (13) women are between south and the west in the country which lies between Ethiopia and Nubia. They are golden in color, with beautiful faces, smooth bodies, and tender flesh. If, as slave girls for pleasure, they are imported while they are still young, they are saved from mutilation, for they are circumcised and all the flesh from the upper part of their pudenda is incised with a razor until the bone appears; they have become a byword. Similarly the nipples of men are cut off and a bone removed from the knee…Bravery and thievery are innate and ingrained in them; they cannot therefore be trusted with money and are unsuitable for use as treasurer or custodian.
The Nubian women, off all the black races, have ease and grace and delicacy. Their bodies are dry, while their flesh is tender; they are strong and at the same time slender and firm. The climate of Egypt suits them, since they drink the water of the Nile, but if they are removed to some place other then Egypt, diseases of the blood and acute sickness overcome them and pain racks their bodies. Their characters are pure, their appearance attractive, and there is in them religion and goodness, virtue, chastity, and submissiveness to the master, as if they had a natural bent for slavery.

Taken from: http://catalog.lib.kyushu-u.ac.jp/handle/2324/13884/pa153.pdf

If I said: Persian women (Farisıya), it is Persian.

Know that it is a mixed-race woman (muwallada Farisıya). By chance both parents are from Persia.

Sometimes there is something else, but not only her father is enough.

Zanju women's descendants (walad), a child with white people if repeated a couple of times, blackness (sawad) becomes white (abyad), a flat nose becomes a hook nose,

The limb becomes flexible and its nature becomes familiar.

Understand that this is the case In every race (jins).

(1) Zamr: a double clarinet that is played in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

(2) bam: guitar like instrument (oud) with four strings.

(3) zir: guitar like instrument (oud) with four strings.

(4) qasab: The [reed] flute.

(5) Kutama: Berber tribe from Algeria.

(6) Sanhaja: confederation of Berber tribes from Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal and Western Sahara.

(7) Masmuda: a Berber tribal confederation of Morocco.

(8) Abu Uthman the slave-dealer: this quote is repeated by Al Saqati (1210).

(9) Zaranj: in south Afghanistan.

(10) Multan: located in Punjab, Pakistan.

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

(12) Zaghawa: also called Beri or Zakhawa, are a Sahelian Muslim ethnic group primarily residing in Fezzan North-eastern Chad, and western Sudan, including Darfur.

(13) Bujja; Beja in N Sudan. The Egyptians leaving from Aswan;  the southern border town on the Nile; have to cross their territory to reach the harbours on the Red Sea.

Note: Taken from: A REGION OF THE MIND: MEDIEVAL ARAB VIEWS OF AFRICAN GEOGRAPHY AND ETHNOGRAPHY AND THEIR LEGACY by JOHN O. HUNWICK in Sudanic Africa Vol. 16 (2005), pp. 103-136.

Ibn Butlan, discussed the physical attributes and moral qualities of the Zanj, the Habash, the Zaghawa and the Nuba. These four designations would appear to coincide with the four principal gates through which African slaves entered the eastern Mediterranean world at that period, to wit: the East African coast (Zanj), the Horn of Africa (Habash), the Lake Chad region (Zaghawa) and the Nile valley (Nuba).