Taken from: ON BLACKNESS IN ARABIC POPULAR LITERATURE: THE BLACK HEROES OF THE SIYAR SHABIYYA (7), THEIR CONCEPTIONS, CONTESTS, AND CONTEXTS by RACHEL NICOLE SCHINE.

 

In the 1909 Cairo edition (here used), the tale comprises 70 chapters.

Chapter I p18-19

The first hero we meet (into whose line Fatima (8) and Abd al-Wahhab (6) are born), is Junduba (9), taking charge of the black legion of his defeated adversary:

The Arab general Junduba rides into battle against an older woman, Shamta (the gray-haired one), and kills her in mounted combat (a feat at which many had tried and failed). In so doing, he liberates Shamta’s legion of black slave soldiers: The forty [warriors] then rode out against Junduba (9) on campaign as if they were one man, and [Junduba] met them like the thirsty earth meets the first drops of rain, and he held his ground against them with the firmness of a lion pride. He screamed at them: Woe upon you! What a sight this is, look what you’ve done! Are you not men possessed of intellect? I have killed Shamta for your sakes, for you are bold lions, yet you were serving an old woman who had no power and no consequence. Indeed, I did this to her because of what she has done to men, for she left no general with his head intact. And had your war-making been merely for wealth I surely would not have taken a share from it. When the people heard his speech, after witnessing what he had done, they glanced at one another and said: Truly he has hit the mark. Then they repeated his words [amongst themselves] and said: By Great God, indeed this prince has spoken rightly. They inclined toward him and said to him: Do as you wish, for we are slaves to you.

Junduba then seals the agreement in verse, saying:

O children of Ham (10), listen to my words,

And take unto yourselves these favors,

Seek not after my murder, wrongfully, on this day,

For my sword-blade and iron fetters will then seek you!

For you are the sons of Ham, son of Nuh

And knights upon the highest [rank] of steeds

I am not pleased by your humiliation, from having

Lived and served under an anklet-wearer [i.e. a woman]

Acting under the direction of an evil old crone,

Brought up under the heel of husbands

Shame on you for serving her

When you are fierce lions!

She’s bereft now of all festive days,

I’ve brought her a dreaded day instead!

So become my fellowship, o children of Ham (10)

You shall find honorable rank and acceptance, for all time

And this fortress shall be a gift unto you,

That you may be stirred by pleasure and approval

[From] within it, go forth before me, and attack,

With lance-points and spearheads

The black soldiers are persuaded by Junduba’s words and join his forces.

 

The Arab general Junduba (9) is the owner of a much-coveted mare named Muzna. The chieftain of the tribe of Tayy (11), Ghatrif, wants to have Muzna. When Ghatrif’s beautiful daughter, Salma, comes of age, Ghatrif offers Salma to whichever man is able to bring him Muzna. The black slave al-Jaffal tries. Salma prays that Jaffal will not be successful, we learn that he is a pathological liar has unkempt facial hair and his body odor and a profoundly disfigured face, and is black. Jaffal disguises himself as an elderly wandering ascetic in order to gain entry into the Kilab tribe’s village (13) and ingratiate himself with its chiefs. The resonance of Jaffal’s construction as a black-skinned, ascetic primitive who dwells in the wilderness and emerges to dispense wisdom to a more urbane cohort echoes both forward and backward in time. When he goes to retrieve the steed after pilfering the key from a sleeping Junduba, he finds the she has already been taken. Her kidnapper was a black slave Fatik, from another tribe, who when he ran, could outstrip horses. Fatik, too, volunteered to steal the horse on behalf of his tribal leader. Jaffal sets off in pursuit. The two meet, Jaffal is killed by Fatik, but Fatik then is compelled to relinquish Muzna to Junduba (9), who arrives on the scene shortly afterward. Another of Ghatrif’s black slaves, Maymun, then takes up the charge of winning Muzna through subterfuge and succeeds. Maymun’s yearning for Salma is not to be fulfilled. Rather, he dies in a chaste embrace with his recalcitrant new spouse from the wounds he sustained when escaping with Muzna. Munza gets restored to the original owner. Yet another black slave comes to take up the challenge. This time, Salma’s would-be betrothed is both black and blind, and is described as an old man, bleary-eyed and blind, wooly-haired and gap-toothed, flat-nosed, blue of eyes and dun-colored like an ifrit from the among the reviled people. He will also die of his wounds while escaping.

 

Throughout this account, the tribal Arabs preoccupations with accruing themselves the trappings of status (noble marriage or remarkable steeds) comes with the false promise and ultimate withholding of these same prospects from an interminable and expendable supply of black slaves, each of whom unknowingly dovetail cyclically with their forebears. Recurrently, the text’s universe takes pains to snatch the black characters from the world of the living at the very moment that they are about to consummate their marriage with Salma and thus secure their posterity, suddenly summoning forth unhealable wounds that had gone previously unnoticed. This serves to underscore the fact that the slaves are being punished not for their thievery and subterfuge, but for their attempt to advance in the social ranks through marriage to Arab women.

 

Chapter VII the Birth of Abd al-Wahhab (6)

Abd al-Wahhab is conceived through rape: his father, al-Harith (12), has his mother Fatima (8) drugged and consummates their new marriage. When Abd al-Wahhab is born, he is—to the shock and dismay of all—black-skinned, leading to Fatima being accused of committing adultery with a black slave.

After several rounds of litigation, the Kilabi tribesmen (13) go to Mecca with Fatima and the child, where the imam Ja‘far al-Ṣadiq (d. 765)(14), whose authority is universally respected and trusted, pronounces a final verdict: Abd al-Wahhab is black because he was conceived at the time of his mother’s menses, about which al-Harith was heedless in his lust. The “black” color of her menstrual discharge mixed with the embryogenic nutfa (sperm-drop), darkening it. Across various versions of Sirat Dhat al-Himma, menstrual sex is said to result in progeny that may be black, but may also be “deformed” or “warped” in other ways.

It does not take long before, as a youth, ʿAbd al-Wahhab perceives that his color causes his mother social anguish. Tearfully, the boy recites a few lines of poetry, beginning with the declaration: Although I am black, my heart has white upon it, from the shining light of day. And concluding that one’s color does not matter, but rather one’s deeds.

 

Now; explaining Abd al-Wahhab’s (6) role as a fully-formed character in the narrative rather than as a curiosity in his infancy. In particular the stakes of placing Abd al-Wahhab, whose lineage is purely Arab despite his African appearance, at the helm of battalions in the Muslim army populated entirely by black Africans where Abd al-Wahhab’s main function is to aid deracinated Africans in a process of assimilation into Arab social norms and structures.

He is not only an exemplum of piety and thus a catalyst for the conversion of his black peers, but also as a figure of Arab heritage who frequently manumits, “adopts,” and otherwise pseudo-genealogically draws members of the black community into his superior social rank; this maneuver also serves to better the economic conditions of blacks within the text, and militates especially against the seductions of Byzantine wealth to which black soldiers are depicted as acutely vulnerable. Abd al-Wahhab’s jurisdiction within the text continues to be exclusively among the blacks.

Abd al-Wahhab (6) also interacts with African Muslims within the text and the dynamics under which he encounters African non-Muslims when Abd al-Wahhab and his peers travel to Ethiopia in pursuit of one of the text’s central villains. In the ensuing portion of the sira (3), the Muslims encounter a number of African peoples, from the Ethiopian princess Maymuna (17) who falls in love with Abd al-Wahhab, to the fierce cannibals of the Banu Uqfur (15) and Lamlam (16). From the text we learn that when the prince [amir](=Wahhab) saw a black [person], he became joyous and if he were a slave, he would go to extremes to purchase him, or if he were free, he became intent on making him one of his companions. Much later, when the Ethiopian armies of the king Hadlamus (18) make war against the Muslim troops, Abd al-Wahhab is overjoyed at their approach.

 

Chapter X Abd al-Wahhab encounters Abu-l-Hazahiz (19)

Abu-l-Hazahiz was a black slave who looked like he was hewn from solid stone, broad-shouldered, with powerful forearms, a huge head, wide nostrils, thick lips, and a deeply black brow, as though it were in the shade of a boulder. His height was like that of a pillar. Abu-l-Hazahiz presents the traits of the untamed wilderness-dweller brought to their apotheosis.

Abu-l-Hazahiz, is at the helm of a battalion of blacks fighting the Byzantines on behalf of the self-proclaimed messianic figure, Mahdi-l-Zaman, who is described in the text as a Kharijite (20) agitator.

Abu-l-Hazahiz, when attacking Rum (21) removes all his ragged clothing from his body and he roared and stormed and sparks flew from his eyes, and there were breakage-points along his canines. He led a shocking campaign against Rum. Thus, Rum learned that he was a seasoned knight who feared neither death nor hardship. The Byzantines believe they must fight fire with fire: the only way to defeat a black adversary (=Abd al-Wahhab (6)) is to acquire one of their own. The Byzantine king: were this black man to enter into my religion and wield a blade before me, no country nor city could defeat him,” and the king offers the territory of Amorium (22) up to the one who is able to deliver Abu-l-Hazahiz to him. They reach to capture him in a trench. Whereupon he is ceremoniously brought before the Byzantine king.

The king commanded that he be brought fine clothing, so they dressed him in [finery] and presented a cloak of honor in which they enrobed him, then they brought [more] riches and dumped them from their boxes, pouring them upon him until they reached his chest, and they placed a money-box from King Manuel’s coffers in his hands. Then they presented ten slave girls with ample breasts to him, like full moons.

Then [Abu-l-Hazahiz] (19) looked at the slave women in his midst—because the women of Rum (21) do not veil their daughters before men, and these slave women were like full moons— and Abu-l-Hazahiz’s reason took flight and he inclined to them and said, ‘It is not so bad for me if I am Christian by day and Muslim by night, then on the Day of Judgment I shall follow whoever had the Truth. He returns on the eve of their next battle to the black soldiers in the Kharijite (20) army as a proselyte, saying:

O people of Ham (10)! O people of Ham! Whoever among you wants first-rate clothes and cash, indeed hasten to me and enter into the Christian religion, and if not then I shall beat faith into [you] with a Yemeni sword! When the blacks saw Abu-l-Hazahiz in that disposition, they all inclined toward him, unlike the remainder of the Arabs, who said, ‘There is no disbelieving after faith, and there is no doubt after certainty, and there is no religion for us save the religion of Islam, and we shall fight in [the cause of] the Most Knowing King, and die honorably and not live in ignominy!

As the Byzantine army is marching toward the frontier—with Abu-l-Hazahiz heading up the black contingent, Abd al-Wahhab (6) and his mother, Fatima (8), hear of their advance and begin to ready the army, at which point we are told Abd al-Wahhab begins to marshal his black forces.

Wahhab and Abu-l-Hazahiz meet in dramatic fashion; Suddenly someone was shouting, ‘Look out, O prince,’ so [Abd al-Wahhab] turned faster than a lightning flash, and behold there was man like an elephant, and he gave a roar and a bray, so the prince screamed in the face of the knight who had advanced upon him with a terrible shout that would split stones and uproot trees, and from this shriek the steed that was under the knight—who was Abu-l-Hazahiz—reeled backward, so he dismounted faster than a dazzling lightning flash ………………… In their final clash, the way in which Abd al-Wahhab finally manages to overcome his foe is literally obscured from the audience’s view, for the two kick up such a cloud of dust that nothing is visible until Abd al-Wahhab emerges with Abu-l-Hazahiz captured in his fist. After the direct interference of Allah he then reconverts to Islam. Abd al-Wahhab helps reconverting Abu-l-Hazahiz to Islam. This process includes teaching Abu-l-Hazahiz how to respect orthodox religious authority in the form of the caliph, as well as demonstrating to him how one prays with intention. After converting the rest of his black contingent back to Islam, Abu-l-Hazahiz merges armies with Abd al-Wahhab (6). Abd al-Wahhab and the Muslim army are called back to Baghdad to help the caliph repel an imminent attack from the fire-worshipping peoples of Khorasan (23).

 

The black figures in Sirat Dhat al-Himma thus come to be typified not by their common point of origin prior to their Islamification, but rather by the specificity of their role within the Muslim community. This role is clearly delineated from that of their Arab peers, so much so in fact that one black inductee into Abd al-Wahhab’s charge, Abu-l-Hazahiz (19) (Father of Convulsion), mistakes Abd al-Wahhab for the “caliph of the blacks,” (khalifat al-sudan) perceiving the caliph Harun al-Rashid (24) as the exclusive ruler of the whites.

 

Chapter XXXV-XXXVII The African Cycle

The sira’s (3) earliest incursion into Abyssinia is filtered through the eyes of the turncoat Uqba (25), who at the time is fleeing the clutches of Abd al-Wahhab’s (6) men. He arrives at the court of the Ethiopian ruler Hadlamus (18), and, upon seeing the retinue of Uqfuri troops (15) stationed around him, declares: these are the zabaniya described by MuHammad b. Abdallah, prophet of the Muslims […] on the day of judgment they drag people to Hell.

The king Hadlamus was fearsome like a buffalo, long-limbed and foam-mouthed, with a lion’s face. He had big ears, powerful arms, huge palms, and tall stature like a pillar. He sat upon an ebony litter, and beneath him lay lion skins. […]. Men from the tribe of Uqfur guarded him […]. There were locked apparatuses over their mouths, and they were like lions on the hunt, they roared and raged, and their voices were like the braying of donkeys.

In the battle between Hadlamus and Fatima (8) she grabs hold of Hadlamus’ head and squeezes so hard he nearly dies. Astonished by her strength, Hadlamus exclaims: when she grabbed hold of my head, I felt as though the sky had fallen to the earth; and Fatima then explained the source of her strength as recited a sacred verse. The captive Hadlamus asks: who is this God of yours? Fatima duly replies …… and he now sees the Muslims as possessing the true faith.

Then Hadlamus (18) goes to proselytize to his land’s governors, of whom there are ten total. After hearing his description of Islam, four convert, while the remaining six say: We have not known anything but the religion of the Messiah [i.e. Christianity] for all the years of our lives.

 

In designating the people of Uqfur (15) as the demons who guard the passage to hell, Uqba’s (25) character instantly points to several elements endemic to descriptions of certain Africans throughout the text: their demonic natures and appearances, their lack of free will and volition, and their fatal power over other men. Portions of the text parrot what were likely common anti-black prejudices, still others represent certain black Africans as proto-Muslims and allies to the Arabs’ cause.

The Abyssinia encountered by Uqba (25) and the Kilabis (13), far from being depicted as the Christian polity and historic seat of Biblical and patristic writings that it had become by the time of Ma’mun’s (26) caliphate, is presented as being plunged into ignorant paganism. When Uqba articulates an appeal to Hadlamus (18) in Christian terms, the king appears never to have heard of the faith or its tenets.

 

Later, when encountering Hadlamus’ (18) territorial rival, the king Damdaman (27), he is described in brief as being “a man of great esteem, little religion, and much pomp”, and presides over his own legion of cannibals from the people of Lamlam.

At the inception of his travels in East Africa, Abd al-Wahhab (6) is nursing wounds from his battles and becoming increasingly emaciated and infirm. It is in this condition that he falls into the hands of his captor, the king Damdaman. He remains sick for a full year, until, A physician from among the Jews attended to him.

When Damdaman (27) sees that Abd al-Wahhab is now well enough to be a proper prisoner, he lowers him into a deep pit, saying, “O cousin, you won’t be leaving here for any less than one thousand qintars of gold, whereupon Abd al-Wahhab realizes: these people are mad.

A notable black female figure will come to figure in Abd al-Wahhab’s adventures, though, in the form of the Ethiopian warrior princes Maymuna (17), who kills her father Damdaman out of love for Abd al-Wahhab and then bears him a child, Bahrun.  And the cannibal peoples of Lamlam, working originally under the king Damdaman (27), are brought into the Muslim fold by his daughter Maymuna, who is represented as a proto-Muslim figure.

Abd al-Wahhab has won the heart of the beloved Ethiopian princess, Damdaman’s daughter Maymuna, who upon seeing Abd al-Wahhab while under her father’s capture, longs for him like Zulaykha longed for Yusuf (28). Maymuna, meanwhile, is presented as a princess who is worthy of Abd al-Wahhab despite her blackness, for her traits defy her race and her upbringing inclines her toward Islam. A man from the land of Zabid and Aden in Yemen arrived to them in Africa, and he had intellection and virtue and moral discipline, and from him she had learned calligraphy and the histories of the Arabs and Persians, and had studied the Arabic language. She was of honorable roots and lineage.

Abd al-Wahhab (6) assumes that all of Maymuna’s (17) advances are attempts to lead him into committing zina with a pagan woman, rather than being born out of a sincere desire to convert to Islam and have a legitimate relationship with him. Moreover, Fatima Dhat al-Himma (8) is unimpressed with Maymuna’s appearance, and cautions Abd al-Wahhab to reject her affections because her like does not belong among the ranks of heroes (abtal). As discussed above, Maymuna is beleaguered on all sides, with her suitors also taking issue with her choice of Abd al-Wahhab because of his immutable differences of culture and inferiority of race.

Anqush (and other African suitors) join several thousand men with Damdaman’s armies and marches out against Abd al-Wahhab and Maymuna. When [Damdaman](27) saw the favored prince [Abd al-Wahhab] amidst the chaos, he called to him: O son of whores, o you of vile rearing! You’re the one who has caused this strife and brought this ordeal upon us!

 

Chapter XXXVIII The Return from Africa.

When Maymuna (17) does ultimately convert to Islam and ride into battle against the Byzantines in their cause, Fatima (8) is proven wrong in at least one sense about the linkage between her race and her heroism. Maymuna brings the entirety of her large, jet-black army with her into her new faith’s fold to fight under Arab auspices. And, because of the fearsomeness and savagery it connotes, Maymuna’s blackness and that of her troops transforms into an instrumental feature of her martial achievements. They put the Byzantine army to flight: We saw the whole earth darkened by the quantity of blacks with them, like buffalo, at least a million of them clad in coats of mail. King Michael’s face hardened, and he said: Woe upon you! I’ve not seen the likes of this save in a dream […].

Taken from: Byzanthion revue internationale des études byzantines By Société belge d'études byzantines, 1935

Chapter LX

The Kilab (13) tribe wins a battle because from Egypt they had received the help of a giant black called el Lamlaman (16).

Chapter LXIX

During an important battle between the Caliph of Baghdad and the Emperor of Constantinople a black called Ghilan from the army of Delhemma joins with his whole army the emperor, they win and Ghilan becomes temporarily in-charge of the Byzantine army because the emperor is wounded…..

There is then a new emperor (of Constantinople) called Michel el Maimouni, called like this because he is the son of Bimond who is the son of the black Maimouna. He is well disposed towards black people because his black grandmother who was for some time married to Abd el Wahhab.

Then totally unexpected Abd el Wahhab (6) and Battal -who were thought to be dead-   arrive with their army of Blacks (Zendj), after having traversed the whole of Iraq. The Byzantines are defeated.

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Situating king Hadlamus, king Damdaman (27) and the Lemlem people.

-From the text we learn that King Hadlamus is a king of Ethiopia but that Christianity is not well known in his area. This is possible as the Christians had to retread from the African coast into the interior. Authors writing about the collapse of Christianity in the coastal lands are Tu Yu (801); Yang Xiu and Song Qi (1066); Ma Tuan-lin (1295).

-King Damdaman: several authors wrote about a people in Africa called: Dendemes, Dendemeh; Dandama the first one being Masudi (916) but most details come from Ibn Said (1250). He says: The Damdam live on the shores of the Nil behind the lands of the Zeng. They invaded Nubia and Abysssinia in the year 617 of the Hegira [1220 AD], at the time when the Mongols invaded Persia. [These Damadams] are the Mongols of the Negroes. This town of Damdama is 54° 20' longitude and by 9° 30' latitude.

-Lemlem people. The author who gives the most details is Al-Dimashqi (1325): The river of the Damadim is a great stream with copious water. It too issues from lake Kuri (or Kourah) and passes through the territory (majalat) of the Damdam of the Sudan and Lamlam of the Zunuj.

From these elements I conclude that King Damdaman has his kingdom south of Ethiopia in the interior and that the Lemlem live closer to the coast where the Zanj (pl. Zunuj) live.

(1) Qadi: an Islamic judge.

(2) crypto-Christian: is the secret practice of Christianity, usually while attempting to camouflage it as another faith or observing the rituals of another religion publicly.

(3) Sira: is an Arabic epic oral story, then written down.

(4) Antar: see my webpage: Asmaee: Sirat Antar ibn Shaddad; (The Romance of Antar) (around 800) from Arabia.

(5) Abu Zayd al-Hilali: was an 11th-century Arab leader and hero of the 'Amirid tribe of Banu Hilal. He became the hero of the epic Taghribat Bani Hilal.

(6) Abd al-Wahhab : Black son of Fatima Dhat al-Himma who both are heros in this epic.

(7) siyar shaʿbiyyah: Arabic saga literature or Arabic Lore.

(8) Fatima Dhat al-Himma: is usually interpreted as a corruption of the honorific Dhat al-Himma, "woman of noble purpose", the mother of Abd al-Wahhab and both are the heros of this epic.

(9) Junduba: the great-grandfather of Dhat al-Himma, and the hero in the first chapter of this epic.

(10) Ham: son of Nuh and ancestor of the Black People.

(11) The Tayy, are a large and ancient Arab tribe, among whose descendants today are the tribes of Bani Sakher and Shammar. In the second century CE, they migrated to the northern Arabian ranges of the Shammar and Salma Mountains.

(12) al-Harith: Father of Abd al-Wahhab and the husband and cousin of his mother Delhemma.

(13) The Banu Kilab was an Arab tribe in the western Najd (central Arabia) where they controlled the horse-breeding pastures of Dariyya from the mid-6th century until at least the mid-9th century.

(14) Ja‘far al-Ṣadiq (d. 765): see my webpage Ja’far al Sadiq; Tauhid al Mufaddal: (Prefered Unity) (d765)

(15) Uqfur: the name Uqfur itself likely comes from the term aqfara, meaning to destroy or bring overwhelming calamity upon something.

(16) Lamlam: -Lemlem people. The author who gives the most details is Al-Dimashqi (1325): The river of the Damadim is a great stream with copious water. It too issues from lake Kuri (or Kourah) and passes through the territory (majalat) of the Damdam of the Sudan and Lamlam of the Zunuj.

(17) the Ethiopian warrior princes Maymuna, who kills her father Damdaman out of love for Abd al-Wahhab and then bears him a child, Bahrun. Maymuna ultimately convert to Islam and rides into battle against the Byzantines.

(18) The Ethiopian ruler Hadlamus; here not a Christian; he converts after being taken prisoner to Islam and joins with his army our heroes. 

(19) Abu-l-Hazahiz; a black slave fighting for a Kharijite agitator, joins the Byzantine forces with his black followers. Bur is later reconverted to Islam by Abd al-Wahhab.

(20) The Kharijites were an extremist Muslim sect in the early centuries of Islam.

(21) Rum=Rome; here Byzantium.

(22) Amorium, also known as Amorion was a city in Phrygia, Asia Minor.

(23) Khorasan: N-E Iran.

(24) Abu Ja'far Harun ibn Muhammad al-Mahdi (c. 763 or 766 – 809AD), famously known as Harun al-Rashid, was the fifth Abbasid caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate, reigning from September 786 until his death in March 809.

(25) Uqba, a Muslim jurist turned crypto-Christian.

(26) Abu al-Abbas Abdallah ibn Harun al-Rashid (14 September 786 – 9 August 833), better known by his regnal name al-Ma'mun, was the seventh Abbasid caliph, who reigned from 813 until his death in 833.

(27) King Damdaman: several authors wrote about a people in Africa called: Dendemes, Dendemeh; Dandama the first one being Masudi (916) but most details come from Ibn Said (1250). He says: The Damdam live on the shores of the Nil behind the lands of the Zeng. They invaded Nubia and Abysssinia in the year 617 of the Hegira [1220 AD], at the time when the Mongols invaded Persia. [These Damadams] are the Mongols of the Negroes. This town of Damdama is 54° 20' longitude and by 9° 30' latitude.

(28) Zulaykha longed for Yusuf: The story of Yusuf and Zulaikha takes place in the twelfth chapter of the Qur’an, titled "Yusuf." The story plays a primary role within the chapter, and begins after Yusuf, son of Yaqub ibn Ishaq ibn Ibrahim, is abandoned and subsequently sold to an Egyptian royal guard.