This paper will investigate the construction of blackness in the narratives of 19th century Egyptian writer Rifa’a Al-Tahtawi (1801-1873), who lived during the era of Arab Egyptian nationalism. The paper builds upon the work of Dr. Eve Trout Powell’s book A Different Shade of Colonialism, an excellent study of Egypt’s nationalist response to the phenomenon of colonialism. Powell shows how central the issue of the Sudan was to Egyptian nationalism and frames her discussion of Al-Tahtawi’s attitudes towards race and slavery within the contexts of European colonialism and Egyptian nationalism. She attributes Al-Tahtawi’s racist characterizations of the Sudanese to the notions of civilization which he inherited from Europe. My paper will build upon her work, and will examine Al-Tahtawi’s views on race not only within the context of Egyptian nationalism and European colonialism, but also within the larger context of Arab discourse on race, racial identity and empire. Primary sources include Al-Tahtawi’s Manahij Al-Albab al-misriya fi mabahij al-adab al-asriya, Takhlis al-ibriz fil takhlis Bariz, as well as the introduction to his translation of Fenelon’s Les Aventures de Télémaque.