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WHEN ARABIA WAS “EASTERN ETHIOPIA” Part I By Dana Marniche
The Indigenous Populations of Arabia
In reality most dialects classified as Semitic are found in Ethiopia and these have been found to not deviate enough from the so called Cushitic language group to qualify as a separate linguistic group thus the terms Semitic and Hamitic have fallen into disfavour among modern linguists and other academics and the name AfroAsiatic has come to be used to comprise both language groups. In fact, the original culture of Abraham and early “Semitic” populations are widespread in Africa and even unmodified in some cases. Similarly deities that were venerated by Semitic speaking people of Asia, such as “the Aramaeans” and “the Akkadians” are still found among Ethiopians and other Africans.
The following quotes are from 19th and early 20th century Western historians, whom unlike today’s historians, understood the strong connection of the original Arabians with the Ethiopic peoples of Africa.
1869 “The Cushites. the first inhabitants of Arabia, are known in the national traditions by the name of Adites, from their progenitor, who is called Ad, the grandson of Ham.” — The New Larned History for Ready Reference Reading and Research, 1922 citing F. Lenormant, Manual of Ancient History, bk. 7, ch. 2. published 1869.
1869 - “To the Cushite race belongs the oldest and purest Arabian blood, and also that great and very ancient civilization whose ruins abound in almost every district of the country….The south Arabs represent a residue of hamitic populations which at one time occupied the whole of Arabia. “ John Baldwin from Pre-historic nations or inquiries Concerning Some of the Great peoples and Civilizations of Antiquity; Harpers 1869.
1881 “ A third body of the Cushites went to the north of the Egypt and founded, on the east of the Delta, the kingdom of the so-called Hyksos , whom tradition designated sometimes as Phoenicians sometimes as Arabians, and in both cases rightly…Lepsius has proved by excellent reasons the Cushite origins of the Hyksos statues from San (Tanis) now in the museum of Boulaq and has made more than merely probable the immigration of the Cushites into the region of the Delta…” p. 402 Heinrich Karl Brugsh in A History of Egypt Under the Pharaohs Derived Entirely from the Monuments, published by John Murray 1881, Vol 2, 2nd edition.
1872 - “Mr. Baldwin draws a marked distinction between the modern Mahomedan Semitic population of Arabia and their great Cushite, Hamite, or Ethiopian predecessors. The former, he says, ‘are comparatively modern in Arabia,’ they have ‘appropriated the reputation of the old race,’ and have unduly occupied the chief attention of modern scholars.” Traditions, Superstitions and Folklore, Charles Hardwick , Manchester A. Ireland and Company, 1872
1891 - …the Cushite Arabians and the Chaldeans, the founders of the first historic civilization in Babylonia being certainly Hamitic, though early mixed with Semitic tribes, long before Assyrian rule. Charles William Hutson , The Beginnings of Civilization, The Columbian Publishing Co., New York. 1891.
1902 - “Among ‘these Negroid features which may be counted normal in Arabs are the full, rather everted lips, shortness and width of nose, certain blanks in the bearded areas of the face between the lower lip and chin and on the cheeks; large, luscious,gazelle-like eyes, a dark brown complexion, and a tendency for the hair to grow in ringlets. Often the features of the more Negroid Arabs are derivatives of Dravidian India rather than inheritances of Hamitic Africa. Although the Arab of today is sharply differentiated from the Negro of Africa, yet there must have been a time when both were represented by a single ancestral stock; in no other way can the prevalence of certain Negroid features be accounted for in the natives of Arabia.” by Henry Field Anthropology, Memoirs Field Museum Press Anthropology, Memoirs Arabs of Central Iraq; Their History, Ethnology and Physical C haracters, Anthropology Memoirs Volume 4,
1923 “There is a considerable mass of evidence to show that there was a very close resemblance between the proto-Egyptians and the Arabs before either became intermingled with Armenoid racial elements.” Elliot Smith p. 54 The Ancient Egyptians and the Origins of Civilization, p.61 2007, earliest publication 1923.
1948 - “In Arabia the first inhabitants were probably a dark-skinned, shortish population intermediate, between the African Hamites and the Dravidians of India and forming a single African Asiatic belt with these. From the Handbook of the Territories which form the Theatre of Operations of the Iraq Petroleum Company Limited and its Associated Companies, First Edition, Compiled in the Companies Head office at 214 Oxford Street London 1948.
By the middle of the 20th century, whether due to the corresponding withdrawal of European colonialists from many lands or the establishment of modern Europeans in Syria/Palestine and consequent flourishing of "Biblical archeology", many Western historians became less acquainted or familiar with the early documented history and genealogical traditions of the Arabian peoples. Meanwhile, the notion of a race of “black Caucasoids” had already been established in the late 19th century and the idea of different colored children of Noah that developed in the 1st centuries after Christ in Muslim and Judaeo-Christian tradition had come to permeate the interpretation of Afro-Asiatic or Arabian genealogy.
WHEN ARABIA WAS “EASTERN ETHIOPIA” Part 2
HOW THE AFRO-ASIATIC HERITAGE WAS NEARLY LOST
Most in the west are mainly familiar with images of high class and wealthy “Arabs”. African-looking Arabians that are indigenous are often isolated from the metropolises of Arabia where populations are descended from diverse intermixtures of the many peoples that have come to occupy the peninsula and the same latitudes of northern Africa. Both locations were well known regions of a flourishing slave trade where both “whites” and “blacks” came in large numbers as merchants, mercenaries or slave-soldiers, and slave-concubines from as far away as Bosnia and Central Asia in the North and Central East Africa in the South.
After the birth of Christ Iranian mercenaries (called the Ebna in texts) were entering the Yemen or southern Arabia by the thousands in the pre-Islamic era and in control of many of its major capitals. So began the modification of the appearance of the aboriginal peoples of a land once referred to as Kush, Canaan or Ethiopia and considered part of the Sudan well into the Midieval era (according to Richmond Palmer's, Bornu Sahara and Sudan). So also began the transference of falsification of the Afro-Arabian heritage to which we owe the racist deformation of the historical allegory of Ham, Shem and Japhet.
Astrocosmological Origins of the Noah Myth: Before the Curse of Ham
The idea that Ham, a son of Noah, was originally a white man who turned black because of a curse is an idea that came about from ancient non-Semitic people interpreting ancient Semitic allegory in their own way and ignoring its metaphysical basis. Bernard Lewis quotes a Christian Saint named Ephrem of Nisibis, Turkey, saying that Noah said, “Accursed be Canaan and may God make his face black,… whereupon the face of Canaan and Ham became black…” He also mentions Ibn Qutayba of Iraq who between 828 – 89AD asserted, “Wah ibn Munabbih said the sons of Ham were changed into blacks’ some of his children went to the West…Fut settled in India and Sind, Kush and Kan’an’s descendants are the various races of blacks: Nubians, Zanj, Qaran, Zaghawa, Ethiopians, Copts, and Berbers. (Kitab al-Ma’arif, ed. Tharwat Ukasha, 2nd ed. (Cairo, 1969) p. 26)’ ” found on page 124 in Race and Slavery in the Middle East. an Historical Enquiry, Oxford University Press, 1992.
The word Ham, Kham, Hammon, Ammon or Amun was the name of the hidden Sun from which sprang Ra or the light of the Sun. It is related to the name for the astronomical black hole known as he Bootes Void. The unknown void was called Mammon or Maimun and was also related to the name of the semi-mythical Memnon “king of Ethiopia”. Darkness or lack of illumination was associated with Mammon the deity of material desires. The word is possibly etymologically related to the term haram meaning sacred or forbidden in Arabian tradition, but is in any case definitely the “charma” in India which was sometimes represented by the black skin of a deer or oryx sacred to the “Indi” and probably to “Kama” the lord of physical or carnal desire. In Egypt Amun or Hammon which was named Kham was represented by a ram which symbolizes the heat of fleshly desire and virility. It is the instinctual will as opposed to higher will and illumination or Shem. Thus, Kham also has the connotation of heat or hotness.
Among the most ancient deities among Afro-Asiatics were Amm, Amun or Hammon, Sama, and Yacchus, Yahu or Jah and Yam. Yet, the tradition of Cham or Ham and Shem or Sam and Dyaus Pita or Jyapeti (which correspond to the totems of the Ram or oryx, the Lion, and the Horse in the Zodiac) are also part of ancient Hindu writings which say Charma, Sharma and Jyapeti or Dyaus Pita were children of MaNu (Nuah, who is also named Satyavarata). Charma got drunk with rice-wine and laughed at his father.
The caste and ethnic name of Charma or Chamar in India refers to leather-workers or tanners working with hides or skin of animals. Those who work with skin or hides, the Chamar are - not surprisingly - a subject or servile caste. In certain Indian ritual the yogis did sit on a sacred black deer skin sacred to Siva and Kama symbolizing the yogi’s submission or subjugation of the flesh or carnal aspects in their nature.
Closely related to the myth of Ham and Charma are the mytholgy in the Indic Iranian tradition related to Hauma, Haumavara and the land of Haumavaran – the latter being recognized as Himyar. Hauma (Sanskrit “Soma”) is the fermented drink just as Hamran referred to wine. Ham in the Arabic tradition was said to be “altered” “black mud”. Thus Ham, Hauma, Haumavar, Hamran, Humayr or Himyar thus would seem to have an etymological connection with things fermented.
The land of “Haumavar” or “Hamavaran” is associated with imprisonment as well as the maternal origins of many Indic-Iranian heroes and is the place where the ruler Kai Ka’us, Kavus or Kavi Usa of the Avesta son of Kai Kavata (or Kubad) and father of Siavus (or Sevaksh) set sail from the region of Makran to marry Sudabeh (in Arabian Sa’uda or Sudana daughter of Akk or according to al -Talibi daughter of of the Himyarite ruler Dhu’l Adh’ar) and was thrown there into prison by its king. (Sa'uda or Sudah is also called by al Masudi the daughter of Shammar king of Hamavar.)
Kavus' son Siavash signified by “the black horse” of the Sun and thus a representation of the Sun- God is possibly the Zaphon or Baal Zafan (or Typhon) of “semitic” or Hyksos-Canaanite tradition. He came to be associated with the donkey or ass cult in Egypt. There is also some apparent connection to the story of Joseph and his donkey or Zafnath of the Bible as well as to a Seva or Seba of Genesis. In the Book of Genesis (Bereshit) 10:7 Seva or Seba is the oldest son of Kush and his name is interestingly said to mean “imbibers of wine”. The Armenian patriarch John even claimed that Sievartik tribe (or Sevardik) had received their name from Seva son of Kush and reputedly claimed it meant “the black sons”.
King Kush, Ka’ush or Kavus known from ancient times also in Mesopotamia was possibly Kush Melekh. He and his Kavyan predecessors in Persia are connected with Kephus or Kepheus “ruler of Ethiopia” of later Greek mythology and ancestor to the early Persians whom were known as Kephenians. The name is said to represent Kaf or Kaph or Kawa divine mountain abode of the Gods representing the pole star. Kaveh or Kawa the deity of the mountain is called the smith among modern Kurds while Kavi Usana is the deity who makes the iron bolts of Indra in the Hindu texts.
The traditions of separate origins of man from Ham or Cham, Shem and Japhet emerged because the real meaning and significance behind the story or allegory of Ham and Sham and Japhet had been misunderstood by peoples who adopted early Afro-Arabian religious traditions. Just as skin covers the body of man the soil covers the body of the earth. The word Ham “the black altered earth” is etymologically related to Hamr or Hamran which in Arabia refers to the agriculturalists or those who care for and cultivate the earth as opposed to the wandering bedouin who are called Simran and are the caretakers or husbandman of the often subjugated Hamran. Hamran, which in the Bible is sometimes translated as Hamdan also signifies a vineyard. Africans spoke in proverbs and saw the natural world metaphorically in relationship to spirituality. In one of the gospels it is said “I am a true vine and my father is a husbandman.”
The symbolic aspects of the myth of Noah and curse of Ham refer to man’s subjugation, enslavement to the lower or carnal mind and nature, its illusory character and necessary subjugation in order to truly liberate oneself. Genesis 10 20-23 – “And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent…” The fact that all of the Israelites from Shem in the Bible are made to marry concubines of Canaan and Ham is also symbolic and reflection of the historical reality that Canaanites and Israelites were the same people. Canaan signified the lower aspect of the soul and Israel another name for Saturn signifying the striving for its perfection.
It is not a coincidence that Siavus in the Persian or Central Asian story is tempted or seduced by Sudabeh in the same manner as Joseph or Yusef also called Asaf in Arabian tradition was tempted many times by the wife of Potiphar. They were both falsely accused of trying to seduce powerful women. Genesis 39:7-8 “And it came to pass after these things, that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said , lie with me , but he refused… and while Joseph (also called Zafnath - Genesis xli. 45) son of Jacob or Yacov, Siavus (Sevakush) is son of Kav’us or Kab’us. At the same time the ass or donkey is associated with the story of Joseph.
There is also evident connection with the myth and ritual surrounding Baal Zaphon or Typhon who is associated with the donkey or ass cult in Egypt – a legacy of the Hyksos invasion. Ba’al the ancient deity of the original Afro-semitic peoples is still a name for Lord among people like like the Mahra. The word Bali still means my Lord. Others have found a connection between the name of Ziph and Cepheus, in which case Cassiopeia would appear to be the Arabian queen Assiyeh whom is the Biblical Asenath married to Zafnath (Josef).
The mythos surrounding Joseph known as Asaf in Arabian tradition is related to the story of the Amalekite “shepherd kings” and their reign in Misra as Pharaohs. In the time of the Amalekite kings Qabus and Raian the ruler Asaf was placed in charge on the throne of Misra or Mizraim (a place which has been interpreted as the African Egypt but which possibly refers to the Misra or Masirah in Yemen). Many have indicated that the name Raian is very possibly the Hyksos name Ian Re while there is also a Yacob-Hor or mentioned on Egyptian scarabs.
Thus, the Hebraic allegory of Noah and his drunkenness is wrapped up in the early history of the Himyarites i.e. Sabaeans and their astronomical knowledge who came to be called “Kushites”, Cephenians, Keftiu in the later world. Their connection to heroes in Iran and Turan is related to the early rule of the “Hyksos” or Amalekites who ruled Saba came to rule and settle in Syria, Armenia and other parts of the Near East in the middle of the 2nd millenium B.C..
Most of the names of Ham’s children and descendants such as Mizraim, Hagar, Kedar, and Sud or Sudan who was sometimes called a son of Canaan (see below) have association with the earth or earthbound elements. Mizrah or Mizraim, (the Ethiopic and Hebrew Mitzraim Metzir or Medir or Mudir) is the early Eritrean or Ethiopian earth deity who is also called Mitra(male) and Mithra (female) in Indic- Iranian traditions - the mediator between heaven and earth. Hagar or Agar means the ploughable or arable earth or soil. Sawad or Sudan who is sometimes called a son of Kana’an means the cultivable or black earth. Kedar or Khadar was the name of a dark green iron and thus came to signify blackness or something that was strong “like iron”. Cana’an came to mean lowland, but also was symbolized by the dog or Cana’an lowly and servant of man.
According to Kamal Salibi and Arabian tradition Canaan was apparently “the lowland” of the Kenaniyya tribe in Arabia corresponding to the Yemenite area and southern Hejaz or Asir region an area running from south of Taif and Mecca. Circa 1000 A.D. an account of Kan’an b. Ham is found in Akbar al Zaman: “He was the eldest of Ham’s sons, and the first to corrupt the religion of Noah, peace be upon him….Among the descendants of Sudan, son of Kan’an, are many nations, among them the Ishban, the Zanj, and many peoples that multiplied in the Maghrib, about 70 of them…..” from the French translation of the Akbar al Zaman : L’Abrege des Merveilles published 1898. Ishban in the Genesis of the Bible is a son of Dishon, brother of Dayshan, brother of Hamdan (or Hamran), Ethran and Cheran descendants of Zibeon, the Hivite or Canaanite. These correspond to well known Himyarite and Sabean clans Banu Jayshan, Hamdan, and Qaran, Zubyan (also Dhuban or Dhubyan) mentioned as late as early Islamic times in the Yemen. (see Yemen in Early Islam, p. 91 Abdal Muhsin Mad’aj, 1988). The name of the Hawt or Huthi may also be the Hevite. The Himyarites or Humayr and Canaanites are thus the same people.
Unfortunately, northern or Western and Near Eastern peoples who have tried to write themselves into ancient Semitic or Afro-Arab and Judaean history and genealogy took out much of the metaphysical and spiritual meaning of the allegory such as found in Genesis. The result was a void of meaningless nonsense about three different colored races that spread across the world. Even the name of Nuah’s ancestor Adam is said to mean “the resounding mud”, “black mud” or earth which links his name to the word Dum of India - an early name for gypsies meaning man and sound, and to Atum, of the ancient Nile and Tumal of East Africa and India and Tama of Central and West Africa who is the God of the smiths that mold the earth. Tumal was Tubal-C’ain, meaning the drummer smith. Tubal was regarded by gypsies as an ancestor. And it is surprising that in African myth, the smith or metallurgist was called “the first drummer.”
Today most people calling themselves Arabs living both within and outside the Arabian peninsula, both fair and dark-skinned, claim descent from either the tribes of Qahtan of southern Arabia or the descendants of Kedar and Ishmael whose mother was Hagar. The term Arab today includes peoples of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and many places in Africa who speak Arabic. In Arabia and the Near East, as in Africa, these populations now include individuals ranging from black in color to a white with red hair. Between the 7th and 12th centuries many of the indigenous tribes from the Yemen are documented as settling in Syria/Lebanon Iran and Iraq. In Iraq, the “Azd tribe, for instance, with all of its clans in the Fertile Crescent traces its genealogy back to its settlement ancestry in Yaman.” These same groups also moved into and settled in Egypt and North Africa and were ancestral to many north African, Egyptian and Sudanese bedouin.
Both the early Qahtan (thought to be Joktan of the Bible) and the Ishmaelite groups were reputedly or referred to as “black” until the Midieval period of Europe. It is not generally known in the West that Arabia was (as the historian Cheikh Anta Diop suggested) essentially an Ethiopic colony until as late as several hundred years ago. Most of the purer or Afro-Arabian populations today though isolated and unfamiliar to Westerners exist within the peninsula under the same names they were known under in, in Biblical records and in texts written by Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Mesopotamian inscriptions and ancient mythology.
Archeology and the Afro-Arabian Cultural Landscape in Context
One important group of artistic depictions comes from the area of Jubba in northern Saudi Arabia. The numerous rock carvings there have given the name Jubba style to the type of artistic depiction. “A strong interregional interaction if not proper movement of people from Arabia to Ethiopia in the 3rd - 2nd millenium B.C. is supported by the occurrence of rock pictures in a typical style in both regions.” In the Horn of Africa where it is found sometimes called the Ethiopian Arabian style or Karora Style and by the 1st millenium B.C. is found in the African Sahara. Alessandra Avanzini, Profumi d’Arabia: Atti del Convegno, 1997 p. 281. It dates back according to some to at least 5,500 B.C. in northern Saudi Arabia. The style is characterized by long and short-horned bovids with body markings with bodies often represented with body in profile. Similarly, human figures are large and elongated in profile except for the waist up. The style of rock art is found all over northern Saudi Arabia also extends to the Wadi Dawasir region in the southern Nejd.
This rock art may have had something to do with the Obeid or Ubaid culture of Arabia which was well known in eastern Arabia and moved into Mesopotamia to form the first Mesopotamian cultures at Eridu. There are also links of this art to certain sites in early neolithic Turkey. As at Jubba goat or dog-headed people “ are quite common” there. So, an iconographical link seems to exist between the goat-headed hunters of Jubba, the T-lad M-headed anthropomorphs of the Latmos area and the "Ziegen-Dämon" of Obeid Culture. Von der Osten-Sacken argues that this anthropomorphic figure is the first deity of Mesopotamian Pantheon.” Gobekli Tepe and the Rock Art of the Near East. Klaus Schmidt, 2000 TÜBA-AR 3 (2000) 1–14* The pottery using Ubaid people of Arabia and Mesopotamia and the Levant form a link between the mesolithic and Neolithic near east. Ubaid culture is characterized by large village settlements, “characterized by multi-roomed rectangular mud-brick houses” and the appearance of the first temples of public architecture in Mesopotamia. They founded the early cities of Adab, Eridu, Kish, Kullab, Lagash, Larsa, Nippur and extend down the coast of eastern Arabia including Bahrein or early Dilmun. They made lizard headed anthropomorphic figurines and worshipped the mother Goddess. Unlike the earliest “Mediterranean” inhabitants and later brachycephalic Eurasiatic peoples in southern Mesopotamia, the Ubaid skeletons are large bodied, large headed, dolicocephalic with long wide noses and accompanying prognathism. For that reason A. Sayce had described them as Negroid. Skeletal markings were similar to those of ancient Natufians who have also been found to have sub-Saharan Central African affinities. (see The Questionable Contribution of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age to European Craniofacial Form, L. Brace, K., Manolis, Pan Qifeng et. al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2006. PNAS 103;242-247. Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 1, Part I reads, “Keith's interesting conclusions—that the skulls of the ancient Sumerians were relatively narrow, that they were dolichocephalic, a large-headed, large-brained people, approaching or exceeding in these respects the longer-headed races of Europe, and that the men's noses were long and wide—is applicable to some of the 'Ubaid dead of the latter half of the third and the beginning of the second millennium B.C. The Cambridge Ancient History, Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen Edwards, 1970, p. 358. The editors earlier say, “ Another impression that arose on the first examination was that the Eridu skulls showed a marked prognathism…” p. 348. But, the Ubaid culture ends abruptly in Arabia in the early 4th millenium B.C. More notable are the connections between the culture called “Sabir” in south Arabia which showed strong links to the pre-Axumite culture of Abyssinia, Eritrea and Sudan. Its origins date back to the 2nd millenium B.C. and have connections with the 3rd millenium megalithic culture in the same region which also had evident African connections. According to, Ancient South Arabia: From the Queen of Sheba to the Advent of Islam, by Klaus Shippmann, (1998, 2001) the research specialist L. Constantini “has maintained that Yemen was part of the Abyssinian Sudanese center” p. 74.
According to M. Petraglia, in 2009 , “Sites from Sihi to Subr along the west and southern coasts of Arabia …for example exhibit pottery that is seen to have parallels with older C-group and Kerma cultures of the Middle Nile (Phillips, 1998, Kitchen, 2006). The Sabir culture itself, which began in the early 2nd millenium B.C. was clearly a sea-oriented coastal culture (Ray, 2003) The recently discovered Bronze Age megalithic site of Midamman in Yemen which seems to span the late third to early first millenium B.C. has also been argued to have parallels not only in the Sabir culture but also with material on the African side (Gumlia Mair et. al. , 2002; Keall, 2004).” Quoted from, The Evolution of Human Populations in Arabia: Paleoenvironmental Prehistory by Michael D. Petraglia, 2009, p. 264.
Avanzini found that these sites which are located both sides of the Red Sea in the Tihama region of Yemen and in Sudan, Eritrea and parts of Aden represent a single cultural complex. She writes “the lithic tools from the Saudi Tihama sites are comparable to those of the Gash group in Kassala. Representative sites of the coastal complex have been reported at Sihi in the southern Tihama plain, Adulis, near the Gulf of Zeila, in Eritrea; Wadi Urq near Hodeidah in the Yemeni Tihama Plain; Sabir (Subr) near Aden. These sites share enough ceramic features to be regarded as regional variants of one cultural tradition.”
By the late 3rd to middle second millenia B.C. there was also “a quite regular interchange circuit between Egypt and the southern Red Sea countries.” (Avanzini, 1997, p. 285)
The stone implements or lithics (the Doian culture of Somalia and the horn of Africa and the Kharga Neolithic and neolithic of the Sahara and western deserts of northern Egypt) and the art in many places such as the Rub al Khali of Central Arabia, Oman, Hadramaut, Hejaz and Yemen was stylistically similar and in some cases identical to that used among populations of Africa in the same periods. The rock art of Central Arabia as in the Rub –al Khali in fact depicted tall or elongated pastoralists whom art specialist Emmanuel Anati, (author of Rock Art in Central Arabia, 1968) referred to as “oval headed Negroids”. In the same region or in Central Arabia today (in Yemamah or southern Nejd of Saudi Arabia ) are people who are described as the tallest and blackest Arabians on the peninsula still trading in the feathers of the ostriches so significant in the ancient art.
This rock art depicting “elegant”, “elongated” “oval heads” resembling pastoralist peoples of East Africa extended into areas certain regions of the Syrian desert as well and dates to the 3rd and second millienum B.C. Stylistic resemblances in art with the art of earlier neolithic Saharans have been commented on. After the late stone age these ancient Arabian people were accustomed to portraying themselves wearing headdresses, carrying copper instruments including swords and in mock ritual battle aside from doing and using many other things common to ancient and modern pastoral nomads of east Africa. “The use of copper and bronze is confirmed by tomb finds in the Nejd and Tihama (cf. above, al Midaman). Males are shown wearing headdresses, and cache-sex chokers and necklaces and sometimes holding scepters.” Petraglia, The Evolution of Human Populations
Archeologists also decades ago identified artwork given the name “realistic dynamic” art style also belonging to the 3rd and second millenium appears in various sites in Arabia with apparent similarities to the early pre-dynastic Egyptian art of “Amratians” and other predynastic populations who had spread from Nubia to the eastern desert and Red Sea hills and down the Nile in to Lower Egypt. The people that brought this culture to Arabia were evidently similar to the mall, gracile Negroid people that occupied the Lower Nile and the Sahara, and are probably the ancestors of similar people presently occupying the coasts of Arabia.
* This art may go back to the pre-pottery Neolithic (PPN) of the Levant. “A spectacular but widely unknown province of Saudi Arabian rock art is Jubba. Hunters, often with a head like a goat or ibex and bovidés, equides or caprovides, are depicted in the rocks around a playa, a former lake in the desert. The bovidés of Jubba and of several rock art sites in the Hijaz in Saudi Arabia follow similar iconogrraphical lines - and they can be closely com pared with the bovids of Jawa's "Animal's Farm". So, the hunter style of Anati is filled with new evidence. It seems to be connected with the PPN-Period and is including Kilwa and the Negev-I- Style, Dhuweila, Jawa and Jubba.” . Schmidt, Göbekli Tepe and the rock art of the Near East, TÜBA-AR 3 (2000) 1-14
Indigenous people of the Tihama region of southwest Arabia still live in beehive huts common to Ethiopia
Ibn Mudjawir (11th c.) refers to Tihama as "Kush"
This Shammar man was typical of bedouin once numerous in North and Central Arabia. Those further north in Syria and Iraq mixed with the populations there.
Somali man
Somali or Bin Sam'al in Africa of the Rahan'ayn, Mahra and other African tribes claim descent from tribes of the same name in Arabia
Man of Nakh'l in Oman
Tall "Ethiopian" or Sabean clans of the Madhij (from Kahlan son of Saba) called Nakha or An'Nakha, Nakhawil, Danakil lined the coasts of the Eritrean Sea (Sea of Harith) in ancient times and came to be known as the "Anakim", Ph'Anakes or Phoenikes
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Well Dana, I have to give you props again for the research you've presented. I actually purchased a book by one of the men you quoted named John D. Baldwin. His book is entitled "Pre-Historic Nations". I got the book as I was trying to order Tariq's book (which still doesn't show as being shipped)because the book discusses how the Ethiopians were the original inhabitants of Arabia, and that Ethiopia itself was actually seated in Arabia as opposed to being solely in the African continent. However in the book Baldwin quotes a claim made by certain "students of antiquity" where he writes ' The people of Ethiopia seem to have been of the caucasian race," Baldwin immediately explains that statement by writing, " meaning white men". He then quotes the praised students by writing about the Greeks calling Ethiopians Ethiops meaning burnt skin or black skin was "perhaps really a foreign word corrupted". Baldwin finally exlains "The appellation (saying Ethiops)had religious significance, but no reference whatever to complexion." Now, I got this book because I saw how Baldwin calling the original Arabs Cushites and saying the Cushites formed the nations in Chaldea, and India, Arabia, Egypt and so on seemed sound and was the info I was looking for. I did a little research about Baldwin and saw that he was also against slavery, and even wrote and spoke against it. Because of that and with these views about the Cushites made me think the book (even though written by a white man) wouldn't have the bogus lying views in it. For the most part the book is good too, but calling the Ethiopian Cushites white men, just had me shaking my head. Because what he's saying is, since the Cushites from Ethiopia are white, and these were the ones who formed Egypt, Arabia, the Chaldeans and so on, that these were all created by white people! I just disregard that paragraph where he quoted that nonsense and understand that every instance where he's discussing the Ethiopian/Cushites, that these were indeed blacks, and I think deep down Baldwin knows it too. With that being said, have you ever heard the claim that Ethiopians were originally white? Have you heard of Baldwin? And also, Baldwin seemed to harp on his belief that Muslim historians lie regarding the background of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. Baldwin claims the Original Cushite Arabs were responsible for Arabia's glorious past and that Muhammad was from the Semitic half of the Arabs. He also claims Arabia was made up pf the two main races, the Cushites and Semites. Now, first Muhammad peace be upon him was from Quraish who descend from yemen, this is known. We also know his family members were black, but what is it with this Semite thing? Yes Muhammad was descendant of Prophet Ibrahim and Ismail who weren't Arab, and Baldwin even called Ismail's mother a Cushite from Egypt, peace be upon all of them. But what is the race of a Semite and how are they different from Cushites. I know at least some Semites were black, but for Baldwin to make this statement (about the racial make up of the Arabs being Cushite and Semite) is puzzling to me unless he's referring to the Jews who migrated into Arabia but were later expelled. What do you think of this though? Anyways, excuse me for such a long reply, and I look forward to reading your reply.
Posts: 14 | From: America | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Abu Isa: Well Dana, I have to give you props again for the research you've presented. I actually purchased a book by one of the men you quoted named John D. Baldwin. His book is entitled "Pre-Historic Nations". I got the book as I was trying to order Tariq's book (which still doesn't show as being shipped)because the book discusses how the Ethiopians were the original inhabitants of Arabia, and that Ethiopia itself was actually seated in Arabia as opposed to being solely in the African continent. However in the book Baldwin quotes a claim made by certain "students of antiquity" where he writes ' The people of Ethiopia seem to have been of the caucasian race," Baldwin immediately explains that statement by writing, " meaning white men". He then quotes the praised students by writing about the Greeks calling Ethiopians Ethiops meaning burnt skin or black skin was "perhaps really a foreign word corrupted". Baldwin finally exlains "The appellation (saying Ethiops)had religious significance, but no reference whatever to complexion." Now, I got this book because I saw how Baldwin calling the original Arabs Cushites and saying the Cushites formed the nations in Chaldea, and India, Arabia, Egypt and so on seemed sound and was the info I was looking for. I did a little research about Baldwin and saw that he was also against slavery, and even wrote and spoke against it. Because of that and with these views about the Cushites made me think the book (even though written by a white man) wouldn't have the bogus lying views in it. For the most part the book is good too, but calling the Ethiopian Cushites white men, just had me shaking my head. Because what he's saying is, since the Cushites from Ethiopia are white, and these were the ones who formed Egypt, Arabia, the Chaldeans and so on, that these were all created by white people! I just disregard that paragraph where he quoted that nonsense and understand that every instance where he's discussing the Ethiopian/Cushites, that these were indeed blacks, and I think deep down Baldwin knows it too. With that being said, have you ever heard the claim that Ethiopians were originally white? Have you heard of Baldwin? And also, Baldwin seemed to harp on his belief that Muslim historians lie regarding the background of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. Baldwin claims the Original Cushite Arabs were responsible for Arabia's glorious past and that Muhammad was from the Semitic half of the Arabs. He also claims Arabia was made up pf the two main races, the Cushites and Semites. Now, first Muhammad peace be upon him was from Quraish who descend from yemen, this is known. We also know his family members were black, but what is it with this Semite thing? Yes Muhammad was descendant of Prophet Ibrahim and Ismail who weren't Arab, and Baldwin even called Ismail's mother a Cushite from Egypt, peace be upon all of them. But what is the race of a Semite and how are they different from Cushites. I know at least some Semites were black, but for Baldwin to make this statement (about the racial make up of the Arabs being Cushite and Semite) is puzzling to me unless he's referring to the Jews who migrated into Arabia but were later expelled. What do you think of this though? Anyways, excuse me for such a long reply, and I look forward to reading your reply.
I know this was directed towards Dana, but to answer your question...no the Ethiopians were not originally a caucasian race. There was an attempt by the historical community very early on to whitewash Ethiopians. This is because Ethiopia's story hasn't fully been told or even realized. Ethiopia rivals Egypt in terms of its importance. This is why old school historians wanted to "lighten them up" I theorize. They are highly regarded in virtually every historical text. Ethiopians have spawned the Sabeans, they may represent the original source of the ancient Egyptians. They founded Abyssinia, an early Christian empire, stood against the Romans (and I think there may be more to this story). They were considered "Hamitic" and totally part of psuedo-Arabic stock. Now, to be clear...yes a certain part of Ethiopian society/culture is ethnically-influenced by Arabs. But as Dana shows and as I did in the African/Arabic Connection thread, and evidence, groups of Black Africans also migrated to Arabia and Yemen...it wasn't a one-way flow of genes. Which is why a British man found Swahili being spoken by groups in Saudi Arabia. But you must also understand that there are also many Ethiopians that are either not as mixed or not mixed at all and look as Black as any other African lol.
Posts: 1219 | From: North Carolina, USA | Registered: Jul 2004
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I know this was directed towards Dana, but to answer your question...no the Ethiopians were not originally a caucasian race. There was an attempt by the historical community very early on to whitewash Ethiopians. This is because Ethiopia's story hasn't fully been told or even realized. Ethiopia rivals Egypt in terms of its importance. This is why old school historians wanted to "lighten them up" I theorize. They are highly regarded in virtually every historical text. Ethiopians have spawned the Sabeans, they may represent the original source of the ancient Egyptians. They founded Abyssinia, an early Christian empire, stood against the Romans (and I think there may be more to this story). They were considered "Hamitic" and totally part of psuedo-Arabic stock. Now, to be clear...yes a certain part of Ethiopian society/culture is ethnically-influenced by Arabs. But as Dana shows and as I did in the African/Arabic Connection thread, and evidence, groups of Black Africans also migrated to Arabia and Yemen...it wasn't a one-way flow of genes. Which is why a British man found Swahili being spoken by groups in Saudi Arabia. But you must also understand that there are also many Ethiopians that are either not as mixed or not mixed at all and look as Black as any other African lol. [/QB][/QUOTE]
King Scorpion, thanks for the reply. I'm sure that the Ethiopians weren't white, and as soon as I read that nonsense in the book I figured that it was just another attempt to steal black history. John D. Baldwin (whom I reference with the book "Pre-Historic Nations") was claiming the Cushites being the founders of civilization, and religion, and so on, so to say the Cushite Ethiopians to be white is a clear attempt to claim white people are the originators of these great historic civilizations from Egypt, Chaldea, Arabia,and so on. It's ridiculous! I will say however, this is further proof of the fact that European historians (not all mind you) have been falsifying history for a long time. Baldwin comes off very hypocritical, not just in this book where he criticises the Greeks for their ego and lack of true historical knowledge, but also in his personal life where he championed the freedom and equal rights for oppressed slaves of America even writing anti slavery journals and being actively involved in movements for this cause. Then to see him clearly try to steal Black history, when he has to know the opinion he quoted (about the Original Cushite Ethiopians being white) and appears to support has to be way off. So I agree with you, I think these historians realise how great the Ethiopian influence was and now instead of trying to claim Egypt for themselves, they want to take it even farther and say the Ethiopians were white too! I wish I had the chance to dialogue with some of these liars so I can serve em' up something proper. It may seem like something irrelevent but stealing one's history, lying and denying these truths is another form of racism, mental slavery, and oppression IMO.
Posts: 14 | From: America | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Abu Isa: Well Dana, I have to give you props again for the research you've presented. I actually purchased a book by one of the men you quoted named John D. Baldwin. His book is entitled "Pre-Historic Nations". I got the book as I was trying to order Tariq's book (which still doesn't show as being shipped)because the book discusses how the Ethiopians were the original inhabitants of Arabia, and that Ethiopia itself was actually seated in Arabia as opposed to being solely in the African continent. However in the book Baldwin quotes a claim made by certain "students of antiquity" where he writes ' The people of Ethiopia seem to have been of the caucasian race," Baldwin immediately explains that statement by writing, " meaning white men". He then quotes the praised students by writing about the Greeks calling Ethiopians Ethiops meaning burnt skin or black skin was "perhaps really a foreign word corrupted". Baldwin finally exlains "The appellation (saying Ethiops)had religious significance, but no reference whatever to complexion." Now, I got this book because I saw how Baldwin calling the original Arabs Cushites and saying the Cushites formed the nations in Chaldea, and India, Arabia, Egypt and so on seemed sound and was the info I was looking for...
Hi - Abu - well i hope u can get the book that u ordered. I hope u ordered it from some place where it didn't say out of stock. U can always email Amazon to see what happened.
As to ur query, Scorpion is right, and u need to understand that up until the 1990s there was perhaps only a few books that would talk about the inhabitants of present Ethiopia and Eritrea as black "Negroids" due to racist anthropological thought. That is just generally what Europeans called them - "black Caucasoids" or "hamites". That is not just Baldwin that is almost any orientalist or historian. Believe it or not there are still certain historians that write this.
It is the reason there is so much controversy over what the ancient Egyptians and Moors for example were, - because European academia had already mixed up Africans of a certain variety with Europeans. Any black African with a narrow nose and little prognathous aspect was basically considered a "Caucasoid" and even said to resemble Nordics. Thus many of the skeletons of the ancient Middle East and Europe that were essentially of black Caucasoid type are referred to as Mediterraneans, Kurgan people etc. and made to look white by forensic reconstruction.
To this day most people don't realize that many of the peoples of ancient Europe classified as "Caucasoid" were actually nothing more than some east African type "Negroes" with narrow noses. Sometimes this is called the "hamitic hypothesis.
This is why the recent studies of Brace and others that were on genetically determined cranial traits are so important.
The only people that seemed to appreciate that most narrow-nosed black people originally had nothing to do with being modern Europeans were some of the early U.S. "anthropologists", pre-civil rights era like William Ripley and the anatomist G. Elliot Smith who studied hundreds of ancient Egyptian skeletons and classified them all as the "brown race". Smith however also considered them not "blacks".
Unfortunately, modern genetics is also largely based on this confusion over what the original people of Europe and Asia were, and is in the processing of recreating the fallacious affiliations promoted by the myth of the "Hamite" or "black Caucasoid".
Samburu moran (warrior) - typical "black Caucasoid" of early anthropologists (created by the overactive European orientalist imagination)
For more information on the development of the "Mediterranean race" concept see Dr. Van Sertima's Egypt Child of Africa. I have an article in their called "Myth of the Mediterranean Race". Also see the other books by him. I would lastly suggest u get the most important book by Chiekh Anta Diop, African Origins of Civilization, which discusses this "racial" categorization which hid the truth about the bringers of purveyors of the earliest civilizations in Asia and Europe.
Posts: 4226 | From: New Jersey, USA | Registered: Mar 2007
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quote:Originally posted by KING: Great learning post Dana please continue to post because it seems like you have a lot of truths to tell us.
Peace
Thanks King - I've been trying but I think some are a little afraid of the facts at this point. I'm reposting Part 3 and 4 soon so stay tuned. Posts: 4226 | From: New Jersey, USA | Registered: Mar 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Abu Isa: I know this was directed towards Dana, but to answer your question...no the Ethiopians were not originally a caucasian race. There was an attempt by the historical community very early on to whitewash Ethiopians. This is because Ethiopia's story hasn't fully been told or even realized. Ethiopia rivals Egypt in terms of its importance. This is why old school historians wanted to "lighten them up" I theorize. They are highly regarded in virtually every historical text. Ethiopians have spawned the Sabeans, they may represent the original source of the ancient Egyptians. They founded Abyssinia, an early Christian empire, stood against the Romans (and I think there may be more to this story). They were considered "Hamitic" and totally part of psuedo-Arabic stock. Now, to be clear...yes a certain part of Ethiopian society/culture is ethnically-influenced by Arabs. But as Dana shows and as I did in the African/Arabic Connection thread, and evidence, groups of Black Africans also migrated to Arabia and Yemen...it wasn't a one-way flow of genes. Which is why a British man found Swahili being spoken by groups in Saudi Arabia. But you must also understand that there are also many Ethiopians that are either not as mixed or not mixed at all and look as Black as any other African lol.
King Scorpion, thanks for the reply. I'm sure that the Ethiopians weren't white, and as soon as I read that nonsense in the book I figured that it was just another attempt to steal black history. John D. Baldwin (whom I reference with the book "Pre-Historic Nations") was claiming the Cushites being the founders of civilization, and religion, and so on, so to say the Cushite Ethiopians to be white is a clear attempt to claim white people are the originators of these great historic civilizations from Egypt, Chaldea, Arabia,and so on. It's ridiculous! I will say however, this is further proof of the fact that European historians (not all mind you) have been falsifying history for a long time. Baldwin comes off very hypocritical, not just in this book where he criticises the Greeks for their ego and lack of true historical knowledge, but also in his personal life where he championed the freedom and equal rights for oppressed slaves of America even writing anti slavery journals and being actively involved in movements for this cause. Then to see him clearly try to steal Black history, when he has to know the opinion he quoted (about the Original Cushite Ethiopians being white) and appears to support has to be way off. So I agree with you, I think these historians realise how great the Ethiopian influence was and now instead of trying to claim Egypt for themselves, they want to take it even farther and say the Ethiopians were white too! I wish I had the chance to dialogue with some of these liars so I can serve em' up something proper. It may seem like something irrelevent but stealing one's history, lying and denying these truths is another form of racism, mental slavery, and oppression IMO. [/QB][/QUOTE]
Well luckily, Western historiography hasn't been as successful in whitewashing Ethiopia as they have Egypt. Ethiopia has maintained their true ethnic heritage unlike Egypt which has been taken over completely by Arabs, Turks, Ottomans...have all influenced Egyptian looks. Even some of the "light-skinned" Ethiopians are considerably dark. It becomes hard to maintain the illusion...which is why Ethiopia has fallen off the radar a little I theorize. Most people believe Ethiopians are Black or at least mostly. Ethiopia is more recently synonymous with Nubia...which is definitely seen as Black.
Ethiopian history needs to be looked at more.
Posts: 1219 | From: North Carolina, USA | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Abu Isa: Well Dana, I have to give you props again for the research you've presented. I actually purchased a book by one of the men you quoted named John D. Baldwin. His book is entitled "Pre-Historic Nations". I got the book as I was trying to order Tariq's book (which still doesn't show as being shipped)because the book discusses how the Ethiopians were the original inhabitants of Arabia, and that Ethiopia itself was actually seated in Arabia as opposed to being solely in the African continent. However in the book Baldwin quotes a claim made by certain "students of antiquity" where he writes ' The people of Ethiopia seem to have been of the caucasian race," Baldwin immediately explains that statement by writing, " meaning white men". He then quotes the praised students by writing about the Greeks calling Ethiopians Ethiops meaning burnt skin or black skin was "perhaps really a foreign word corrupted". Baldwin finally exlains "The appellation (saying Ethiops)had religious significance, but no reference whatever to complexion." Now, I got this book because I saw how Baldwin calling the original Arabs Cushites and saying the Cushites formed the nations in Chaldea, and India, Arabia, Egypt and so on seemed sound and was the info I was looking for...
Hi - Abu - well i hope u can get the book that u ordered. I hope u ordered it from some place where it didn't say out of stock. U can always email Amazon to see what happened.
As to ur query, Scorpion is right, and u need to understand that up until the 1990s there was perhaps only a few books that would talk about the inhabitants of present Ethiopia and Eritrea as black "Negroids" due to racist anthropological thought. That is just generally what Europeans called them - "black Caucasoids" or "hamites". That is not just Baldwin that is almost any orientalist or historian. Believe it or not there are still certain historians that write this.
It is the reason there is so much controversy over what the ancient Egyptians and Moors for example were, - because European academia had already mixed up Africans of a certain variety with Europeans. Any black African with a narrow nose and little prognathous aspect was basically considered a "Caucasoid" and even said to resemble Nordics. Thus many of the skeletons of the ancient Middle East and Europe that were essentially of black Caucasoid type are referred to as Mediterraneans, Kurgan people etc. and made to look white by forensic reconstruction.
To this day most people don't realize that many of the peoples of ancient Europe classified as "Caucasoid" were actually nothing more than some east African type "Negroes" with narrow noses. Sometimes this is called the "hamitic hypothesis.
This is why the recent studies of Brace and others that were on genetically determined cranial traits are so important.
The only people that seemed to appreciate that most narrow-nosed black people originally had nothing to do with being modern Europeans were some of the early U.S. "anthropologists", pre-civil rights era like William Ripley and the anatomist G. Elliot Smith who studied hundreds of ancient Egyptian skeletons and classified them all as the "brown race". Smith however also considered them not "blacks".
Unfortunately, modern genetics is also largely based on this confusion over what the original people of Europe and Asia were, and is in the processing of recreating the fallacious affiliations promoted by the myth of the "Hamite" or "black Caucasoid".
Samburu moran (warrior) - typical "black Caucasoid" of early anthropologists (created by the overactive European orientalist imagination)
For more information on the development of the "Mediterranean race" concept see Dr. Van Sertima's Egypt Child of Africa. I have an article in their called "Myth of the Mediterranean Race". Also see the other books by him. I would lastly suggest u get the most important book by Chiekh Anta Diop, African Origins of Civilization, which discusses this "racial" categorization which hid the truth about the bringers of purveyors of the earliest civilizations in Asia and Europe.
Exactly. The "Mediterrean Race" has been tackled on this forum before. But the thread is years old now and I don't know how to access it. A lot of the old threads got deleted. It was written by Doug M if I'm not mistaken. The Miditerrean Myth is still very much support, even though it's lacking in strong evidence. It's basically a buffer group I think to separate dark-skinned Africans from Europeans. They don't like the idea of accepting that Black Africans walked the shores of North Africa...so close to Europe. It's like they picture this fake Jim Crow style history where Europeans (White) existed in the far north. "Sub-Saharan" Africans were below the Saharan desert in the south (Blacks). And a group that combined the two were in the center (Berbers, North Africa, Middle East). I don't think it's coincidental that J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth is modeled after this "style" and countless other European-inspired fantasy tales.
Problem is, history doesn't work that rigidly. There is strong evidence that ancient and medieval societies moved all over the place. It's diffusionist, and it helps not to get carried away with it and over-attribute influences and generalize though (which is the easy thing to do). The Historical community doesn't like to emphasize this (which is why the community is still behind when it comes to Trans-Atlantic Contact) because it would mean accepting as historical fact...some things they don't want to.
Posts: 1219 | From: North Carolina, USA | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by abdulkarem3: awsome pics dana but dont show these to marki because he may dismiss these as a european scandal and tht maybe they are recent lol.
LOL! Yeah - I'm sure its only a matter of time. Posts: 4226 | From: New Jersey, USA | Registered: Mar 2007
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quote:Originally posted by King_Scorpion: Ethiopia has maintained their true ethnic heritage unlike Egypt which has been taken over completely by Arabs, Turks, Ottomans...
Egypt continued to have relations with the rest of Africa they were never cut off. (Until European colonialism)
quote:Originally posted by King_Scorpion: the Sabeans, they may represent the original source of the ancient Egyptians. They founded Abyssinia, an early Christian empire
quote:But now we come to some remarkable statements, which show and prove that the Ethiopians were of the same race and stock as the Abyssinians. The New International Encyclopaedia says: "The Abyssinian monasteries are known to possess large numbers of (Ethiopian) manuscripts."
The Americana Encyclopaedia says, "During the middle ages the Christians and clergy of Abyssinia were designated as the Ethiopian Church. Manuscripts written in the Ethiopian language are in the possession of Abyssinian monks and in libraries in Europe."
quote:“The people of Hijaz and Yemen and the rest of the Arabs learned archery from them (The Nubians)”
On page 20 the author wrote
quote: 3. The awe and respect that the Muslims had for their Nubian adversaries are reflected in the fact that even a rather late Umayyad caliph, ‘Umar b ‘Abd al- ‘Aziz (‘Umar II 717-720), is said to have ratified the Nubian-Muslim treaty out of fear for the safety of the Muslims (“he ratified the peace treaty out of consideration for the Muslims and out of [a desire] to spare their lives”)
quote:During the first or Meccan period (610=622) of his prophetship Muhammad and his followers looked upon the Abyssinian Christians as their religious kinsmen. "Yonder," he said to some of his persecuted converts without protectors, and, as he spake, pointing westward: "Yonder lieth a land where none is wronged. Go thither, and remain till the Lord open a way". Dean Stanley noted this connection between the Abyssinian Christians and the first Muslims. He wrote: "Springing out of the same oriental soil and climate, if not from the bosom of the oriental church itself, in part under its influence, in part by reaction, Muhammadanism must be regarded as an eccentric, heretical form of eastern Christianity. This was the ancient mode of regarding Muhammad. He was considered not the founder of a new religion but, rather, one of the chief heresiarchs of the church"
quote:They were Christians, it should be remembered, for many centuries, and although the flourishing Christian Empire of Nubia, with its seventeen bishoprics and its thirteen viceroyalties, all governed by priests, was not founded, as is commonly supposed, by the renowned Silco, " King of the Noubads and of all the Ethiopians," it was strong enough frequently to invade Egypt in defence of their oppressed Greek and Koptic fellow-Christians. So early as 640 a combined army of Nubas and Bejas, said to have numbered 50,000 men with 1500 elephants, penetrated as far north as Oxyrhynchus (the Arab Bahnosa) where such a surprising store of Greek and other documents was discovered in 1897. Cultured peoples with such glorious records, and traditions going back even to pre-Christian times (Silco and Queen Candace, contemporary of Augustus
quote:at periods the Nubians gained the upper hand, as in 737 when Cyriacus, their then king, marched into Egypt with a large army to redress the grievances of the Copts. There is a record of an embassy sent by a king Zacharias in the 9th century to Bagdad concerning the tribute,....
...... Nevertheless, the Nubians were strong enough to invade upper Egypt during the reign of Nawaya Krcstos (1342-1372), because the governor of Cairo had thrown the patriarch of Alexandria into prison.
posted
Hausa became was a world language "a world=speech between tribes of different languages and between Mediterranean and Sudanese Africa." They and others would definitely have a great deal of contact with Egypt even in the 19th century
Contemporaries recognized Borno as a world power. They had vast trading networks, a powerful military and a rich intellectual culture. Around 1512 Borno sent diplomats to the N. African-occupied Spain, they had an embassy in the Ottomans Empire, where the two countries had a treaty of, "friendship and commerce," and Borno also had close relations with Egypt.6 (496, v)
quote: In the Chad group the Hausa has spread farthest and acquired most usefulness. The vernacular of a numerous people, it offers a valuable medium of communication through vast districts on both sides of the Binwe and the Niger. In extent of use it surpasses all other languages in inner Africa, serving not only as the mother=tongue of millions but as a world=speech between tribes of different languages and between Mediterranean and Sudanese Africa. Hausa is remarkable for simplicity, elegance and wealth of vocabulary. It stands among the world's imperial languages, magnificent, rich and sonorous, beautiful and facile in grammatical structure, enjoying a harmony in the forms of its words and a symphonic symmetry that few tongues can equal, and assured of prolonged existence and vast expansion. It is the Latin of Central Sudan.
posted
A final nail in the coffin of Dana's 19th century racial theories. Concerning the three excerpts bellow
1. This makes Scorpian's Arab pseudo stock theory seem more unlikely
2. Same thing
3. Abyssinians are more closely related to Zanj than Arabs are related to other Arabs! I was just guessing that we meant Zanj I added the (Zanj?) into the text
The Blacks continue: coming from Abyssinia, we were Masters of the country of Arabia up to Mecca, and on all the country our law reigned. We put to rout Du Nuwas, killed by the 'Aqyal Himyarites. You, you never dominated our country.....
and if the Prophet – may Allah be pleased with him – knew that the Zanj, Ethiopians and Nubians were not ruddy or light-skinned, rather dark-skinned, and that Allah Most High sent him to the dark-skinned and the ruddy, then surely he made us and the Arabs equals. Hence, we are the only dark-skinned people. If the appellation dark-skinned applies to us, then we are the pure Sudan, and the Arabs only resemble us.....
...Qahtan is far from Adman. We (Zanj?) are closer kin to the Abyssinians and our mothers are closer kin then those of Adnan are to Qahtan.
.. The Axumite kingdom is an excellent case in point. Being such an important example of African cultural development, a European myth of external (South Arabian) origins for this culture solidified in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and has taken on the quality of truth for most scholars even today. In fact, there is little evidence for this other than the powerful pull of ideology, which states that Africa cannot produce culture, civilizations, or history
quote:“The people of Hijaz and Yemen and the rest of the Arabs learned archery from them (The Nubians)”
On page 20 the author wrote
quote: 3. The awe and respect that the Muslims had for their Nubian adversaries are reflected in the fact that even a rather late Umayyad caliph, ‘Umar b ‘Abd al- ‘Aziz (‘Umar II 717-720), is said to have ratified the Nubian-Muslim treaty out of fear for the safety of the Muslims (“he ratified the peace treaty out of consideration for the Muslims and out of [a desire] to spare their lives”)
quote:During the first or Meccan period (610=622) of his prophetship Muhammad and his followers looked upon the Abyssinian Christians as their religious kinsmen. "Yonder," he said to some of his persecuted converts without protectors, and, as he spake, pointing westward: "Yonder lieth a land where none is wronged. Go thither, and remain till the Lord open a way". Dean Stanley noted this connection between the Abyssinian Christians and the first Muslims. He wrote: "Springing out of the same oriental soil and climate, if not from the bosom of the oriental church itself, in part under its influence, in part by reaction, Muhammadanism must be regarded as an eccentric, heretical form of eastern Christianity. This was the ancient mode of regarding Muhammad. He was considered not the founder of a new religion but, rather, one of the chief heresiarchs of the church"
Oh my GOd! Were u ever right, abdulkarem - it is time to come back to earth Mark! Where in this post did I say Arabia was not colonized by Africans. LOL.
Between you and Mike I'm really getting exhausted here responding to something I"M NOT TALKING ABOUT.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THE ISLAMIC ERA OR CHRISTIANITY.... CAN YOU READ ME?! Testing testing 1,2,3...... EARTH TO MARK! EARTH TO MARK!
Wow! I think I'd rather be listening to Hammer. Posts: 4226 | From: New Jersey, USA | Registered: Mar 2007
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posted
And why did the migrations turn northward after Islam if it wasn't like that before Islam too?
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
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quote:Originally posted by dana marniche: On the other hand it is obvious their original ruling classes (Maghira, Zaghwe, Aswanek or Soninke, etc) were peoples of Arabian or Yemenite descent who have mixed with indigenous Africans.
quote:Originally posted by markellion: A final nail in the coffin of Dana's 19th century racial theories. Concerning the three excerpts bellow
1. This makes Scorpian's Arab pseudo stock theory seem more unlikely
2. Same thing
3. Abyssinians are more closely related to Zanj than Arabs are related to other Arabs! I was just guessing that we meant Zanj I added the (Zanj?) into the text
The Blacks continue: coming from Abyssinia, we were Masters of the country of Arabia up to Mecca, and on all the country our law reigned. We put to rout Du Nuwas, killed by the 'Aqyal Himyarites. You, you never dominated our country.....
and if the Prophet – may Allah be pleased with him – knew that the Zanj, Ethiopians and Nubians were not ruddy or light-skinned, rather dark-skinned, and that Allah Most High sent him to the dark-skinned and the ruddy, then surely he made us and the Arabs equals. Hence, we are the only dark-skinned people. If the appellation dark-skinned applies to us, then we are the pure Sudan, and the Arabs only resemble us.....
...Qahtan is far from Adman. We (Zanj?) are closer kin to the Abyssinians and our mothers are closer kin then those of Adnan are to Qahtan.
.. The Axumite kingdom is an excellent case in point. Being such an important example of African cultural development, a European myth of external (South Arabian) origins for this culture solidified in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and has taken on the quality of truth for most scholars even today. In fact, there is little evidence for this other than the powerful pull of ideology, which states that Africa cannot produce culture, civilizations, or history
LOL! I have to agree with Dana on this Mark. WTF are you blabbering about? When did I say Abyssinians WEREN'T more closely related to their African bretheren? I was pointing out though that that whole region called Abyssinia, Nubia, Ethiopia, Saba (and in the old days Cush) likely comprised of some of the same "tribes" in East Africa. These were BLACK AFRICANS! I agree with you on that Mark and NEVER disagreed. But pointing out a clear link with those Black Arabs (and later light-skinned Arabs) in Arabia and Yemen is not placing an ARABIC origin on East African civilization! But you can't ignore the creation of the Swahili language done by Africans with trade links across the Red Sea. Swahili at one point in time may have been the langua franca of Red Sea trading! And you can't ignore the evidence given in my thread about poor Arabs immigrating to Abyssinia to make a living and send money home. Intermarrying with local women while there.
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quote:All the talk about slaves rising against the wretched conditions of work in the salt marshes of Basra is a figment of the imagination and has no support in the sources.....The vast majority of the rebels were Arabs of the Persian Gulf supported by free East Africans who had made their homes in the region.....
(continued page 102)...If more proof is needed that it was not a slave revolt, it is to be found in the fact that it had a highly organized army and navy which vigorously resisted the whole weight of the central government for almost fifteen years. Moreover, it must have had huge resources that allowed it to build no less than six impregnable towns in which there were arsenals for the manufacture of weapons and battleships. These towns also had in their mammoth markets prodigious wealth which was more than the salt marshes could conceivably produce. Even all the booty from Basra and the whole region could not account for such enormous wealth. Significantly the revolt had the backing of a certain group of merchants who preserved with their support until the very end. Tabari makes it very clear that the strength of the rebels was dependent on the support of these merchants.
quote:With remarkable efficiency and expedition the rebels swiftly established their control over most of the Persian Gulf coast, and extended it inland to secure their food supplies. Special vehemence was reserved for the port of Basra, which they practically destroyed. Their choice of sites for their own new towns and their meticulous knowledge of the intricate waterways of the region in addition to their great skill in naval warfare were all utilized to strangle the Basran economy and drive all the in-coming trade through their own channels. Wasit, the major bottle-neck on the way north to Baghdad, was completely cut off from any road or waterway leading south to the Gulf coast. Furthermore, the rebels occupied Kufa in order to secure the alternative inland route to the north. They expelled government forces from all these areas and easily withstood the onslaught of the successive expeditions that Muwaffaq sent against them. Realizing the grave dangers of this situation, he decided to mobilize all the financial and military forces against this audacious enemy…...
Ok there are in fact many accounts of Arabs marrying into royal families and there were migrations to the “western Sudan” probably since very early times but did you post a specific quote about Zaghawa because I think I might have missed it. I thought Zaghawa were supposed to be amongst the oldest people to have kingdoms. This is what was bothering me because I didn’t see specific information on it although maybe they did come from Arabia. I was frustrated because I felt like you weren't giving me any information
quote:Originally posted by dana marniche: It is wrong however to say that populations like the Mande as a whole came from Arabia. On the other hand it is obvious their original ruling classes (Maghira, Zaghwe, Aswanek or Soninke, etc) were peoples of Arabian or Yemenite descent who have mixed with indigenous Africans.
Some Fulani also mixed with the Hudin or (Zaghwe or Zaghawa groups) who settled in Abyssinia in pre-Islamic times from southern Arabia.
quote:Originally posted by dana marniche: The Mande and Soninke or Aswanek are the result of mixing with people who came from the north ancient Yemenites because people of Zaghawa and Tuareg origin settled amongst them.
The result of such convergent investigations by scholars working in different fields was that Jacqueline Pirenne, basing herself on the areas material culture, as well as on linguistic and paleographic data, stood Conti Rossinis thesis on its head. She argued that migration was not from Yemen to Ethiopia, but rather in the opposite direction: from Ethiopia to Yemen.
Ok there are in fact many accounts of Arabs marrying into royal families and there were migrations to the “western Sudan” probably since very early times but did you post a specific quote about Zaghawa because I think I might have missed it. I thought Zaghawa were supposed to be amongst the oldest people to have kingdoms. This is what was bothering me because I didn’t see specific information on it although maybe they did come from Arabia. I was frustrated because I felt like you weren't giving me any information
quote:Originally posted by dana marniche: It is wrong however to say that populations like the Mande as a whole came from Arabia. On the other hand it is obvious their original ruling classes (Maghira, Zaghwe, Aswanek or Soninke, etc) were peoples of Arabian or Yemenite descent who have mixed with indigenous Africans.
Some Fulani also mixed with the Hudin or (Zaghwe or Zaghawa groups) who settled in Abyssinia in pre-Islamic times from southern Arabia.
quote:Originally posted by dana marniche: The Mande and Soninke or Aswanek are the result of mixing with people who came from the north ancient Yemenites because people of Zaghawa and Tuareg origin settled amongst them.
The result of such convergent investigations by scholars working in different fields was that Jacqueline Pirenne, basing herself on the areas material culture, as well as on linguistic and paleographic data, stood Conti Rossinis thesis on its head. She argued that migration was not from Yemen to Ethiopia, but rather in the opposite direction: from Ethiopia to Yemen.
Markellion, it would have been better to respond to ur post on the other posting that deals with the other subject of Tariq's book. Ur responses have little to do with my article on ancient "Ethiopia" - one of the former names of "Arabia".
I guess it would have sounded better if I had said the "ruling classes" were composed of indigenous Africans who had mixed with ancient Arabians. This response as u might remember was a response to why some members and Tarik's book pointed out certain Africans proclaimed an ancient Arabian descent.
Before I answer ur questions I will have to tell u that Zaghawa (likely the same people as the Zaghwe dynasty or Agaw of Ethiopia) were called "Beriberi" due to East African affiliation. They settled the Nilo-Saharan region of the Kamnuri or Bornu ( who are also today called "Beriberi"), and were affiliated with the Jukon, Kwona, Kwararafa groups among the Hausa, Yoruba and other West Africans.
The presence of the Beli-Zaghawa or Erigat (Beja) may also have something to do with the apparently Sabaean tradition of Yarub or Yarab and Hadad (Odudawa) etc. amongst early west African peoples.
It is a fact that the Baliyya or Kudh'a (Kuth) and Hud and other tribes of Himyar(Sabaeans) passed over into Africa and prehistoric times and settled along the Nile at Meroe Blue Nile (the Astaborus) although they could not have differed much from people that were already in the region either biologically or culturally. One early inscription dated several centuries B.C. in Abyssinia mentioned the Adthat (Adah), Beshmat (Beshemoth) and Waran "of the tribe of Ark (Arghu)".
As I have already mentioned previously on several sites whole tribes of Cushites still occupy modern Arabia including peoples named Afar or Afari, Makhir, Hubir, Wubar, Yubir, Haram, Mahra or Mahara and Kara to name just a few. This has been the case for at least 3000 years if not longer.
At some point in time, and according to tradition several points in time, these "Ethiopians" moved from the Tihama (also known as Kush), Yemen and parts of the Asir region fled into Africa as well as India northward to Syria. This occured at various times previous to 1,000 B.C. Such movements as I mentioned above have been pretty much documented through archeology. The problem previously was that European scholars assumed they were different from the population they settled among. However, the region extending to the Indian Ocean had been occupied by Africans and involved trading amongst themselves for thousands of years or since the neolithic as also now acknowledged by archeologists.
Some of these people coming back into Africa were Jewish or Yehudi and gave were ancestral to tribes like the Hudin, Falasha and Sambara who moved southward and westward over centuries giving birth to such peoples Lemba, and other Jewish groups amongst West Africans where they were also "mixed" with indigenous African populations.
Other groups were "Hebraic" but not necessarily Jewish. This is the cause of Josephus' reference to the descendants of Keturah becoming the occupants of the trogodyte regions of Africa.
"From Antiquites of the Jews - Chapter 15
Entitled - "HOW THE NATION OF THE TROGLODYTES WERE DERIVED FROM ABRAHAM BY KETURAH.
ABRAHAM after this married Keturah, by whom six sons were born to him, men of courage, and of sagacious minds: Zambran, and Jazar, and Madan, and Madian, and Josabak, and Sous. Now the sons of Sous were Sabathan and Dadan. The sons of Dadan were Latusim, and Assur, and Luom. The sons of Madiau were Ephas, and Ophren, and Anoch, and Ebidas, and Eldas. Now, for all these sons and grandsons, Abraham contrived to settle them in colonies; and they took possession of Troglodytis, and the country of Arabia the Happy, as far as it reaches to the Red Sea. It is related of this Ophren, that he made war against Libya, and took it, and that his grandchildren, when they inhabited it, called it (from his name) Africa. And indeed Alexander Polyhistor gives his attestation to what I here say; who speaks thus: "Cleodemus the prophet, who was also called Malchus, who wrote a History of the Jews, in agreement with the History of Moses, their legislator, relates, that there were many sons born to Abraham by Keturah: nay, he names three of them, Apher, and Surim, and Japhran. That from Surim was the land of Assyria denominated; and that from the other two (Apher and Japbran) the country of Africa took its name, because these men were auxiliaries to Hercules, when he fought against Libya and Antaeus; and that Hercules married Aphra's daughter, and of her he begat a son, Diodorus; and that Sophon was his son, from whom that barbarous people called Sophacians were denominated."
For this reason I do not believe ur theory that the myths related to Arabian origins are mostly influenced by recent European or even Islamic Arabian conquests.
I also do not believe groups that claim ancestry in Arabia - as Hebrews from the land of Canaan (originally ancient Asir/Yemen region) - such as the Watutsi, Maghira and Iforas (Tuareg) and other groups were influenced by European colonizlists in claiming ancient "Hebraic" (Arabian) heritage.
Neither do I believe that the Jewish groups in Africa were just making things up. I believe the Hebraic people like the peoople of Qahtan were one and remnants of the African-affiliated culture that arose over 5000 years ago in Arabia. In later times of course the name Punt, Kush Iram seems to refer to kingdoms and or peoples on both sides of the Red Sea. And Ethiopian peoples of Meroe (Sabeans)and the Blue Nile are referred to as Arabians by people like Strabo and other early historians.
It is not impossible that such names of the Madhij or Medjayu (Madiau of Josephus or Madian), Sasu or Shasu (Sous), Afar (Afren son of Madiau or Midian), Anakha Danakil (Anoch or Henoch), Mahra, Begawi or Beja (Begawi - Ezra 8), Baliy (Bela - Genesis 36:32), etc. have been in both areas for at least 3000 years. Nevertheless these names are said to stem from ancient "Sabean" or "Adite" kings. They are also names of peoples or families mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (as shown above). Whether these early chiefs or kings ruled on the Arabian or African side of the Erithraean Sea or both is perhaps the only pertinent question.
Jews of southern Arabia (probably a bit lighter in color than their "Canaanite" ancestors)
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posted
There were people from Arabia who settled in western Sudan and other places but concerning the Zaghawa there are many accounts that say they had the first kingdom of "western Sudan" and they were often pagans. The accounts contradict each other so it wouldn't be a good idea to be overly hasty to say they were Arabs that came in and mixed with indigenous folk:
quote:Originally posted by dana marniche: [QUOTE]The Mande and Soninke or Aswanek are the result of mixing with people who came from the north ancient Yemenites because people of Zaghawa and Tuareg origin settled amongst them.
Concerning Odudawa people seem to be ignoring the influence of the empire of Benin
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quote:Originally posted by markellion: There were people from Arabia who settled in western Sudan and other places but concerning the Zaghawa there are many accounts that say they had the first kingdom of "western Sudan" and they were often pagans. The accounts contradict each other so it wouldn't be a good idea to be overly hasty to say they were Arabs that came in and mixed with indigenous folk:
quote:Originally posted by dana marniche: [QUOTE]The Mande and Soninke or Aswanek are the result of mixing with people who came from the north ancient Yemenites because people of Zaghawa and Tuareg origin settled amongst them.
Concerning Odudawa people seem to be ignoring the influence of the empire of Benin
I think it is u that should not be hasty as obviously Garamantians, Benin, etc. and other societies were in "Western Sudan" centuries before the Zaghawa or "Beriberi". And for the last time please stop confusing "Arabs" with ancient Arabians who called themselves Yarab son of Qahtan. U obviously have some unsavory idea of "Arabs" that has nothing to do with Afro-semitic (Canaanite) peoples of thousands of years ago whom Africans claim as their ancestors.
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quote:Originally posted by markellion: I've read accounts about people of the Jewish faith coming to western Sudan and sometimes becoming "pagans" or taking up pagan customs
However Zaghawa according to many accounts had the first kingdom in "western Sudan".
Edit: Of course maybe some of these writers were wrong or the translator missed something up
Saying something again and again obviouslyl doen't make it so. I can do that, too.
Obviously Garamantians, Benin, etc. and other societies were in "Western Sudan" centuries before the Zaghawa or "Beriberi". And for the last time please stop confusing "Arabs" with ancient Arabians who called themselves Yarab son of Qahtan. U obviously have some unsavory idea of "Arabs" that has nothing to do with Afro-semitic (Canaanite) peoples of thousands of years ago whom Africans claim as their ancestors. Posts: 4226 | From: New Jersey, USA | Registered: Mar 2007
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quote:Originally posted by King_Scorpion: I know this was directed towards Dana, but to answer your question...no the Ethiopians were not originally a caucasian race. There was an attempt by the historical community very early on to whitewash Ethiopians. This is because Ethiopia's story hasn't fully been told or even realized. Ethiopia rivals Egypt in terms of its importance. This is why old school historians wanted to "lighten them up" I theorize. They are highly regarded in virtually every historical text. Ethiopians have spawned the Sabeans, they may represent the original source of the ancient Egyptians. They founded Abyssinia, an early Christian empire, stood against the Romans (and I think there may be more to this story). They were considered "Hamitic" and totally part of psuedo-Arabic stock. Now, to be clear...yes a certain part of Ethiopian society/culture is ethnically-influenced by Arabs. But as Dana shows and as I did in the African/Arabic Connection thread, and evidence, groups of Black Africans also migrated to Arabia and Yemen...it wasn't a one-way flow of genes. Which is why a British man found Swahili being spoken by groups in Saudi Arabia. But you must also understand that there are also many Ethiopians that are either not as mixed or not mixed at all and look as Black as any other African lol.
The attempt to white wash Ethiopia is actually an old one based on two reasons: 1. Ethiopia has one of the oldest civilizations in Africa with some of it still continuing this day and 2. Ethiopia is a site for earliest remains of modern humans. Thus the need to claim these populations from prehistoric to early historical as "Cacasoid".
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quote:Originally posted by Hammered: How is everything in the 19th century Dana?
I can't speak for Dana but everything seems great apparently, since even 21st century studies of today supports her claims!
How is everything in your trailer park? And I take it your beer and liquor is fine. Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
djehuti, no studies support her claims or yours. You are the master of spin and distortion. Nobody in the academic community ever mentions the views you present. Anyone who wants to hear them has to come here and if they do they leave scratching their heads. What we have with you and dana is two frustrated negroes who want to make a silk purse out of a pigs ear.
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posted
^ Nice pics as usual Doug. I was wondering when you'll chime in with your pic parade.
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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However Zaghawa according to many accounts had the first kingdom in "western Sudan".
Saying something again and again obviouslyl doen't make it so. I can do that, too. [/QB]
What are you disagreeing with all I said was that many accounts of Zaghawa say that they had the first kingdom of "Western Sudan". Anyway this is on topic because you say they passed through East Africa. Yes people did immigrate to these places from Arabia ect. I'm talking specifically about the Zaghawa. For anyone reading this do not think that I am saying there were no migrations to these places or that I have any prejudices from people from Arabia or wherever I am talking about specific cases like with Odudawa and Zaghawa. Odudawa is likely to have been from the Benin empire
Again I never said these migrations never occurred
quote:Originally posted by dana marniche: I think it is u that should not be hasty as obviously Garamantians, Benin, etc. and other societies were in "Western Sudan" centuries before the Zaghawa or "Beriberi".
This is very annoying because what I was saying was Odudawa was likely to have come from the Benin empire. The ancientness of Benin only supports this point more
"Medieval West Africa: Views From Arab Scholars and Merchants"
page 1 Al-Ya'qubi (9th century) wrote that Zaghawa are "Sudan" and descendants of Ham who traveled westward. Page 2 Zaghawa (according to Ya'qubi) the first to have a kingdom in western Sudan
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quote:Originally posted by Hammered: djehuti, no studies support her claims or yours. You are the master of spin and distortion. Nobody in the academic community ever mentions the views you present. Anyone who wants to hear them has to come here and if they do they leave scratching their heads. What we have with you and dana is two frustrated negroes who want to make a silk purse out of a pigs ear.
Yes 'professor', keep repeating your delusions if it makes you feel better. Meanwhile Dana, I, and others will continue to cite mainstream historical and scientific evidence that proves our point. By the way, since you've forgotten I'm Asian American, Dana is Italian, posters like Arwa and a few others have actually lived in Arabia, while YOU are just an intellectually frustrated red-neck from Texas who, every time his racist delusions are shattered, apparently feels the need to medicate on booze or at least that's how you seem judging by your posts. Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
There are many other accounts (see previous post) that claim Zaghawa had the first kingdom of "western Sudan". Whither that is true I don't know but there are sources that make that claim, therefor we shouldn't be overly hasty to accept that they came from Arabia or wherever. The two specific cases I've brought up so far were Odudawa and Zaghawa but I'm not saying people did not migrate to "western Sudan" from Arabia or other places
This shows why Zaghawa are so significant. According to Shaban they were important as soldiers:
quote:The sudden and conspicuous appearance of the Sudan amongst the armies of Ibn Tulun in Egypt calls for an explanation. Some sources like us to believe that he bought as many as 40,000 Negro slaves and made soldieries out of them to build up an empire of his own. Buying such a number of slaves, let alone training them to be an effective fighting force in a completely unfamiliar territory, would certainly have required more time than the few years that preceded their appearance in Egypt and subsequently in Syria and on the Byzantine borders in the early years of Ibn Tuluns rule 868/884. Other sources more accurately inform us that he enlisted these Sudan in his army
quote:We are here concerned with the Zaghawa, the name of a tribe and its territory which bordered the south of the Sahara and extended west from what is now the western Sudan across Chad, Niger and Northern Nigeria to Upper Vota. Through these regions passed an important trade route that started from Ghana and continued all the way to the Egyptian Oasis and then either to the Nile Valley or to Tripolitania.. The good relations with the king of Nubia, who had had his Nubia House in Fustat since the days of Mutasim, provided the solution
quote:For the Zaghawa the Nubian route was a much safer one that would save them from the hazards of the desert. Once this was established, their increasing presence in Egypt was almost a logical consequence and a clear indication of their interest is widening the scope of their trade. Ibn Tulun would have no objection to such an expansion which could only enhance the wealth of his domains. This common interest created the opportunity for military as well as economic co-operation which explains the enlistment of the Sudan in the army of Egypt
posted
Markellion, you have to put the arabic writers in context. Western Sudan is a concept that is not precise in any sense. It is a relative term that changed depending on context. Therefore, someone in Egypt could rightly call Chad "western Sudan" as it was South West of Egypt. But that is not the necessarily the same as Western Africa. Case in point, the arabic writers of Morocco and Islamic Spain called West Africa simply Sudan, not western Sudan. Therefore, Western Sudan from the context of the writer and the time frame is literally to the west of the country we now know as Sudan. It does not mean all of West Africa. Likewise, "first" in this context is likewise relative and depends on context. Since this document you are referring to is an arabic source, most likely it means first ARABIC civilization or first civilization that has some affiliation with Arabic in some way in the Chad basin. It does not mean first civilization in an absolute sense.
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quote:The Sudan who went to the west traversed several countries and created several kingdoms. The first of their kingdoms is that of Zaghawa who lived in the place called Kanim....
Then there is the kingdom of Kawkaw, which is the greatest of the realms of the Sudan, the most important and powerful...
Then there is the kingdom of Ghana, whose king is also very powerful. In his country are the gold mines, and under his authority are a number of kings.
posted
Markellion Kanim is the kingdom of Kanem Bornou which existed in Chad and extended into Western Sudan (the modern country). That is not West Africa and has nothing to do with the first civilizations in West Africa. In the sense that Kanem was once connected to the Islamic kingdoms of Sudan calling Kanem "Western Sudan" is not a reference to West Africa.
The term Sudan in Islamic literature is a generic term and had many contexts and could refer to any place from East to West Africa. It is not a precise term. It is similar to the way the word Ethiopia was used to refer to Africa in general. In this sense, Western Sudan literally to the west of the modern country of Sudan.
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posted
Of course by "Western Sudan" he means the western half. These scholars decided that Zaghawa belonged to the western half at least according to this book
However there could be interactions since pre-Islamic times the bellow talks about these long distance contacts
"The Negroland of the Arabs examined and explained" 1841
quote: In speaking of Kulwa (Kilwa, or Quiloa), on the eastern coast of Africa, he uses these words:—"A merchant there told me, that the town of Sofalah is half a month's journey from Kulwa, and one month from Yufi in the country of the Limiyin, and that gold is brought from Yufi to Sofalah."" The boldness here evinced in bringing together and joining in commerce countries far asunder, is constantly exhibited in the geographical speculations of an early or ill-informed age. Distances are then enlarged as expediency requires; hypothesis leaps over the vacant spaces, and forcibly stretches the known portions in the opposite sides of a continent till they meet in the centre. Illustrations of this truth may be found in all ages. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Abyssinia, Congo, and Monomotapa were all supposed to meet together. One of the Jesuits resident in Abyssinia asserts, that salt was carried from that country to Tomboktu.
posted
Markellion, quoting these ancient books without putting them into context is meaningless. Obviously Kanem Bornou and the Zaghawa were not West Africans and had nothing to do with the development of civilization in West or Central Africa. What you are posting is does not support your argument and you are simply focusing on the same handful of passages from ONE BOOK and spamming almost all threads with the same LITTLE BIT of information and trying to make it seem like it is somehow more than it is: a small piece of a larger puzzle and not the whole picture.
Research does not constitute quoting a few passages out of one book. You have to cross reference and go to the source where possible and look at the larger context and find supporting quotes and passages from other works.
The fact is that the oldest cultures and civilization of West Africa are Ancient Ghana, the Nok, the Dar Tichitt among others. They have nothing to do with the culture of Kanem Bornou which arose in the 9th century. The quote you keep referring to is likely claiming that Kanem Bornou was the first Islamic or Arabic civilization in that region west of modern Sudan. It certainly does not amount to any serious history of West Africa.
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posted
Of course your right and just because someone in the 9th century thought that Zaghawa were the first people in all of the western half of "Sudan" to have a kingdom doesn't make it true.
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