Sufism and Ibadism have a lot in common. They both focus on the spiritual equality of all Muslims, and they also arose in the same time and place: Basra, Iraq, between 650 and 680 CE. Strikingly, from the mid-seventh century onward, Basra was also a primary disembarkation point for Indian Ocean slaves. Eighth- and ninth-century Sufi literature, especially in Basra, tended to equate the lowest social status (enslaved eastern African physical laborers) with the highest spirituality. Reading the rise of Sufism in its historical context, I argue that extreme Sufi devotional behaviors, namely excessive weeping, fearfulness, fasting, and sleeplessness, were pious reenactments of, respectively, enslaved people’s grief, terror in hostile environments, undernourishment, and forced labor day and night. This paper draws on early hadith, Ibadi legal opinions, poetry, literary prose, agricultural manuals, and chronicles in support of this allegorical reading. The argument also challenges the presumed benignity of Middle Eastern slavery and explores the consequences of disciplinary silences around non-elite agricultural enslavement.

Kitāb al-Aghānī by Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī (d. 356/967) contains biographical notices on two poets called Nuṣayb; the elder Nuṣayb is Nuṣayb b. Rabāḥ, the mawlā of the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Marwān, and the younger one is Nuṣayb the mawlā of the Abbasid caliph al-Mahdī. Both Nuṣaybs were of African descent and were born into slavery in the Arabian Peninsula, and both bore the kunya Abū al-Ḥajnā’. The two Nuṣaybs, plus Abū Dulāma, are the Black poets who acted as court poets to caliphs who have left behind the largest number of surviving poems and biographical anecdotes. The elder Nuṣayb is a towering figure in Kitāb al-Aghānī; his poem about his beloved Zaynab is one of the Top 100 songs in Kitāb al-Aghānī, and his biographical notice tells of his efforts to free as many people as possible from slavery and of his conversations with colleagues, rivals, and lady loves. By contrast, the younger Nuṣayb’s notice tends simply to quote his poems with brief remarks about the occasions for them. The story of the younger Nuṣayb’s first meeting with his patron seems to allude to an analogous anecdote about the elder Nuṣayb. When the elder Nuṣayb was a young man, still enslaved in the Ḥijāz, some of the camels for which he was responsible got lost, and Nuṣayb traveled to Egypt to seek an audience with ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Marwān. After much difficulty, Nuṣayb gained the patronage of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and thereafter lived a virtuous life. By contrast, al-Mahdī sent the younger Nuṣayb, who had recently become his mawlā, to Yemen to buy some camels, but Nuṣayb squandered the money on hedonistic pursuits. The second story seems to be a reworking of the first, contrasting the elder Nuṣayb’s earnestness with the younger Nuṣayb’s audacity, which is consistent with Abū al-Faraj’s views on Umayyad innocence and Abbasid decadence. Elsewhere in the biographical sources, al-Mahdī and al-Aṣmaʿī (d. 216/831) compare the younger Nuṣayb to the elder one. Modern scholarship has also focused on connecting the younger Nuṣayb to the elder one and to other Black poets, while ignoring other noteworthy aspects of the information available about him, such as his close relationship with the Barmakids and his support for the poetic career of his daughter al-Ḥajnā’.

Poetry from the Margin: Muhammad ʿAbd al-Bārī Speaks Back, Transforming the Center Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Bārī, the poet of Sudanese origin who has gained a stellar reputation across the Arab World, winning several international poetry prizes over the last decade, has invoked both classical Arabic and world literary heritage, including Greek, Pre-Islamic, Quranic, Andalusian, and sufi themes and elements, only to upend literary expectations built up by such references, to deliver astonishing and transformational contemporary messages, posing challenge and disruption to central Arabic and religious discourses. This paper examines several poems by Muhammad ʿAbd al-Bārī and analyzes his use of literary pastiche, and how the layering and intermixing of such references sprout startling new meanings which infect and morph the trajectory of the poem. For instance, ʿAbd al-Bārī composed a Zarqa’ al-Yamamah poem (“What Zarqa’ al-Yamamah did not say”) which transforms the pre-Islamic myth of Zarqa’ al-Yamamah, and changes the trajectory of the poem and his treatment of the myth significantly. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Bārī is known for his use of sufi and philosophical idiom, images, and metaphors. This and other poems exemplify his use of such themes, in which he inserts a through line of mystical thought into his treatment of Zarqā’ al-Yamāmah, which had never been articulated in her clear-sighted and quasi-prophetic utterances to her people so long ago, thereby reaffirming her as a an unintentional prophet, and transforming her into a mystical forebear. This paper will examine this and three other such poems in detail, analyze ʿAbd al-Bārī’s poetics, situate the poems in the larger body of his body of work to date, and relate his work to the broader currents of transformation from the margin to the center in Modern and Contemporary Arabic Poetry.

Arabic language education in the United States has the potential to celebrate and engage thoughtfully with the diversity of Arabic language varieties and their speakers. An Arabic language classroom that embraces diglossia has many benefits, not least among them opportunities to engage heritage learners of Arabic. One of the challenges of this approach is that it requires teachers and students to confront the hierarchies of varieties of spoken Arabic as perceived by native speakers. Some varieties of spoken Arabic enjoy prestige, while others are stigmatized and considered “broken.” The language varieties prevalent among Black native speakers of Arabic tend to fall into the latter category. The curricula in most Arabic programs in the United States do not address this issue at all, putting heritage speakers of historically marginalized varieties of Arabic at a disadvantage in the Arabic language classroom. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of considering blackness in the context of Arabic language education. It draws on my experiences as a teacher of Arabic language and literature and the experiences of students, heritage and non-heritage. It reflects on language ideologies as they manifest themselves in Arabic language education, such as the practice of overtly or implicitly encouraging students to unlearn their home language. It also reflects on students’ experiences interacting with Arabic literature by modern and contemporary Black writers, including but not limited to highlighting the plurality within Arabic literary culture. Our experiences showcase the benefit of intentionally exploring modern Arabic literature beyond the Egyptian-centric canon and amplifying the voices of Black Arabic writers. Authors like Al-Ṭayyib Ṣāliḥ, Amīr Tāj al-Sirr, and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Baraka Sākin invite students to engage with difficult knowledge, exploring themes of marginalization, oppression, and discrimination within local contexts. Reading Muḥammad al-Faytūrī’s poems invites global themes of Black solidarity. It also deals with issues of representation of the Arabic language, its speakers, and its cultural products, within the Arabic language curriculum.

This presentation deepens the analysis of 'Antara ibn Shaddad’s poetry by framing his ode as a crucial socio-cultural precursor to the Qur'anic discourse on slavery and blackness. 'Antara, as a black and initially enslaved figure, embodies a unique intersection of identities in pre-Islamic Arabia. This study aims to illuminate how his poetic expression of these identities lays a foundational perspective that resonates with the subsequent Qur'anic reforms on slavery. While Arabia and neighboring cultures of the time practiced slavery as a normative institution, the Qur'anic approach introduced significant reforms. The presentation will explore how 'Antara's portrayal of his own blackness and enslaved condition, marked by resilience and honor, echoes in the Qur'anic legislations, which brought major changes to the ancient institution of slavery. These changes include the presumption of freedom, the ban on the enslavement of free persons except under stringent conditions, and the innovative use of alms for the manumission of slaves. The discussion will further delve into the Qur'an’s unique stance on the treatment of slaves, including the introduction of freeing slaves as atonement for certain sins. The Qur'an's emphasis on the societal responsibility toward slaves and their placement alongside other weak members of society as deserving of protection marked a progressive shift in the narrative around slavery. Ultimately, the presentation argues that 'Antara's poetic legacy, with its profound engagement with themes of race and social status, provides an essential context for understanding the revolutionary stance of the Qur'an on slavery. The comparison reveals a significant cultural and ethical transition from pre-Islamic norms to Islamic reforms, highlighting 'Antara's enduring influence on the shaping of societal attitudes towards race and human dignity.

The quest for identity in Haji Jabir’s Black Foam Daoud, David or Dawit is an Eritrean man on a journey to discover his identity and which land does he belong to? He moves as a refugee from Eritrea to Ethiopia to Israel. Does he maintain his Muslim identity or give it up for Christianity? Is he a Falasha jew who is ultimately in conviction that Israel is his homeland? Black Foam by Al Jazeera journalist Haji Jabir is a book that sheds light on the intersectionality and complexity of both Afro-Arab and Afro- Israeli identities. The book was long listed for the International Arab Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2019. This paper describes the struggles African refuges and migrant go through in their real-life journeys. Through following the story of Daoud, this paper hopes to find an answer to the questions: How does Haji Jabir represent Eritreans living in Middle East? How does Black Foam speak to a universal issue of migration, displacement, and resettlement? Etc.