The field of “Night Studies” has produced much scholarship on the medieval Arabic text “Alf Layla Wa Layla” (Arabian Nights) on gender, oral traditions, violence, and the politics of translation. However, the figure of the sexually deviant enslaved black subject remains understudied. By conducting a close reading of this medieval text, I examine the centrality of blackness and anti-blackness in 14th century text by tracing the ontological formation of the enslaved black subject in the text which, I argue, is constituted through slavery and racial animality. This paper center Mas’ood, a black slave who is only called into the story to sexually serve Shahrayar’s wife; every time he is called upon, Mas‘ood descends from a tree to the ground. Drawing on theories of racial animality which dictate that “blackness is a species construct (meaning “in proximity to the animal”), and animalness is a racial construct (meaning “in proximity to blackness”), and the two are dynamically interconstituted all the way down,” I argue that the black subject in this folklore is constituted as an animal, not human. While this popular medieval work of folklore has been “transformed and translated” from Persian to Arabic, English and French, the figure of the sexually deviant black slave remains. Central to the text is the gendered violence that women are subjected to at the hands of Shahrayar which is the result of his wife’s infidelity and sexual escapades with her black slave Mas’ood. Thus, one must ask, what role does the sexually deviant slave play in the psyche of the medieval Arab? How can we understand women’s subjugation in the text against the backdrop of “deviant” black hypersexuality? This paper attempts to answer those questions.

Despite the ever-richer scholarship on perceptions of “blackness” in Muslim communities across time, there remains much to be studied about the history of how Islamic legal texts spoke about black-skinned believers. The Arabic-language interpretive tradition of the M?lik? school of Islamic law – prevalent across north and west Africa and the Sahel – included legal debates about the social status of “black” people in everyday life and particularly in marriage negotiations. I ask – what can the M?lik? legal texts tell us about historical Muslim perceptions of “blackness”, the fluidity of historical interpretations of Islamic law, and the role of Muslim jurists in either supporting or challenging anti-blackness? To answer, I discuss two brief case studies of marriage fiqh in the foundational M?lik? Arabic-language text al-Mudawwana, where Imam M?lik is presented ambiguously discussing the social perception of “blackness” as undesirable and “black women” as lowly. Using these case studies, I chronologically trace how different popular M?lik? jurists across time interpreted M?lik’s words in thirty-eight Arabic-language M?lik? texts. I argue that Al-Mudawanna’s recognition of social anti-blackness is tempered by M?lik’s idealization of equality between believers – however, M?lik’s legal followers over time often appealed to the recognition of “social custom” within marriage fiqh to justify legally upholding social anti-blackness rather than challenging it. On the other hand, other M?lik? jurists went out of their way to appeal against such readings of M?lik’s words, arguing that piety should be the highest criterion of marriage. In conclusion, rather than only repeating the opinion of their forebears or using only the “pure Islamic primary sources”, the discussions of “blackness” in M?lik? marriage fiqh show how jurists’ legal interpretations were colored by society and how “custom” could be used in the law even when seemingly going against primary sources on equality of all believers. Understanding the history of “blackness” in M?lik? legal texts, particularly in different African Muslim communities where these Arabic-language texts were widespread, can help explain how Muslims understand what is “Islamic” and what the potential role of fiqh can be for modern Muslims confronting anti-blackness.