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It is easy, by dwelling on the splendors of Bagdad and Cordova, to forget the desolation of Africa, the trampling under foot for so many ages of the national life of Persia. It is easy to show that the teaching of Islam was in itself far better than the idolatry of India, better even than the shape which the creed of Zoroaster had taken in later times. Nay, it may be that, in some times and places, Islam may have been felt as kindling a truer spiritual life than some of the forms of corrupted Christianity. But it is well to remember that the same corruptions which had already crept into Christianity, crept, in their own time, into Islam also. The mystic superstition of the Persian, the saint-worship of the Turk, have fallen as far away from the first teaching of the Prophet of Arabia as any form of Christianity has fallen away from the first teaching of the Gospel. But let it be that, in all heathen and even in some Christian lands, Islam in its first and best days appeared as a reform. Still it is a reform which has stifled all other reforms. It is a reform which has chained down every nation which has accepted it at a certain stage of moral and political growth. As such, this system of imperfect truth must ever be the greatest hindrance in the way of more perfect truth. Because Islam comes nearer to Christianity than any other false system, because it comes nearer than any other to satisfying the wants of man's spiritual nature, for that very reason it is, above all other false systems, pre-eminently anti-christian. It is, as it were, the personal enemy and rival of the faith, disputing on equal terms for the same prize. It has shown itself so in the whole course of history; it must go on showing itself so, wherever the disciples of Mahomet cleave faithfully to the spirit and the letter of their own law.

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The Arabs of the 7th century used letters as numbers. This alphabetical numbering system is called "Abjad." The merchants of those days had to know the letters of the alphabet to record their accounts! If Muhammad was a successful international merchant, as is universally accepted, then he most probably knew this numbering system. The Arabs stopped using the "Abjad" system in the 9th century when they took "Arabic numbers" from India.

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Despite the increasing interest in translation in the last two decades, there has been no investigation of the translation of historiography and its transformation from one language to another. This article takes as a case study the translation into French of Ibn Khaldûn, the fourteenth-century North African historian. It considers specifically the translation done by William de Slane in the context of the colonization of Algeria. The Histoire des Berbères, the French narrative of Ibn Khaldûn that relates to the history of Arabs and Berbers in the Maghreb, has become since then the source of French knowledge of North Africa. It is upon that French narrative that colonial and post-colonial historians have constructed their knowledge of North Africa, of Arabs, and of Berbers. The article shows how a portion of the writing of Ibn Khaldûn was translated and transformed in the process in such a way as to become a French narrative with colonial categories specific to the nineteenth century. Using a semiotic approach and analyzing both the French text and its original, the article shows how colonialism introduced what Castoriadis calls an "imaginary" by transforming local knowledge and converting it into colonial knowledge. In showing this the essay reveals that not only is translation not the transmission of a message from one language to another, it is indeed the production of a new text. For translation is itself the product of an imaginary, a creation-in Ricoeur's words, a "restructuring of semantic fields."

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A third very important influence which has retarded the development of the Christian Negro may be found in the social and literary pressure which he has undergone. It is not too much to say that the popular literature of the Christian world, since the discovery of America, or at least for the last two hundred years, has been anti-Negro. The Mohammedan Negro has felt nothing of the withering power of caste. There is nothing in his colour or race to debar him from the highest privileges, social or political, to which any other Muslim can attain. The slave who becomes a Mohammedan is free.'7 Mohammedan history abounds with examples of distinguished Negroes. The eloquent Adzan or Call to Prayer, which to this day summons at the same hours millions of the human race to their devotions, was first uttered by a Negro, Bilal by name, whom Mohammed, in obedience to a dream, appointed the first Muezzin or Crier.28 And it has been remarked that even Alexander the Great is in Asia an unknown personage by the side of this honoured Negro. Mr. Muir notices the inflexible constancy of Bilal to the faith of Islam under the severest trials.29 Ibn Khalli- kan mentions a celebrated Negro Khalif, who reigned at Bagdad in the ninth century.30 He describes him as a man of great merit, and a perfect scholar. None of the sons of Khalifs spoke with greater propriety and elegance, or composed verses with greater ability.....

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Christian literature has nothing to show on behalf of the Negro comparable to Mohammedan literature; and there is nothing in Mohammedan literature corresponding to the Negro—or ' nigger ' as even a liberal clergyman like Mr. Haweis will call him 33—of Christian caricaturists. A distinguished American scholar and thinker has noticed this. He says :

The black man in literature is either a weakling or caricature. The comic side of him alone comes into view. The single sonnet of Wordsworth upon the chieftain Toussaint, and the ' sparkles dire of fierce, vindictive song' from the American Whit- tier, are almost the only literary allusions to the sublime and tragic elements in the Negro's nature and condition; certainly the only allusions that, without any abatement and introduction of ludicrous traits, ally him solely with human. . . Exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind.

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Originally posted by alTakruri:
I don't have time for your
the-all-powerful-Euro-colonialist altered
all Arabic texts displaying colour prejudice

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We have seen that Negroes are in general characterized by levity, excitability and great emotionalism. They are found eager to dance whenever they hear a melody. They are everywhere described as stupid.

Masoudi took it upon him to look for the cause that produces by the Negroes that light handedness, the constant pleasure they radiate, but for all solutions there is only a word from Galen and Al-Kendi after whom their character goes towards a feeble brain, from where comes feeble intelligence. Their words do not prove anything and are without value.

The black nations are as a rule, submissive to slavery, because ( blacks) have little (that is essentially) human and have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated.

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This may be illustrated by the Persian nation. In the past, the Persians filled the world with their great numbers. When their military force was annihilated in the days of the Arabs, they were still very numerous. It is said that Sa'd (b. Abi Waqqas) counted (the population) beyond Ctesiphon. It numbered 137,000 (individuals), with 37,000 heads of families. But when the Persians came under the rule of the Arabs and were made subject to (oppression by) force, they lasted only a short while and were wiped out as if they had never been. One should not think that this was the result of some (specific) persecution or aggression perpetrated against them. The rule of Islam is known for its justice. Such (disintegration as befell the Persians) is in human nature. It happens when people lose control of their own affairs and become the in­strument of someone else.

Therefore, the Negro nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because (Negroes) have little (that is essentially) human and have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated.137

Or,138 there are those who by accepting slavery hope to obtain high rank or to get money or power. This was the case with the Turks in the East, and with the Galician infidels and European Christians in Spain. Such people are customarily claimed by the dynasty for itself. Thus, they are not ashamed to be slaves, because they hope to be chosen for high position by the dynasty. And God knows better.

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